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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Taylor Swift Wedding Guests Arrive At Madison Square Garden; Dangerous Heatwave Hits Peak Temps Along U.S. East Coast; Ousted Stars And Stripes Ombudsman Files Key Lawsuit Against Hegseth's Pentagon; Poll: American Pride Falls To 25-Year Record Low; Trump Riffs On Former Presidents During Story Book Reading; Interpol Identifies Ukrainian Woman As Suspect In Monaco Bombing. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired July 03, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

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[17:00:30]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Blame the heat this holiday weekend for major change of plans. The Lead starts right now.

Canceled parades, delayed fireworks, and even the Great American State Fair put on hold, all because of a dangerous heat not letting up. Ahead, the punishing effects of this east coast heat dome.

Plus this hour, President Trump is leaving the White House headed to Mount Rushmore for an Independence Eve address. Will he be divisive or measured as he warms up for his historic speech tomorrow? Teasing. It'll be really long.

But first, it's a love story. She'd better just say yes. Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and the huge Madison Square Garden wedding reportedly going down in a matter of minutes. Welcome to The Lead.

I'm Abby Phillip in for Jake Tapper today. We started the podcast Top Lead with what Taylor Swift's fans are calling the American Royal wedding. The superstar is expected to say forever and always to Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce, likely in just a few minutes.

Now, this afternoon, celebrities and friends of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, including her childhood bestie Abigail Anderson and L.A. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford were spotted leaving a hotel near Madison Square Garden just before the cocktail hour kickoff.

The entire weekend of enchanted wedding events has been kept tightly under wraps with black cars and SUVs seen rolling into Madison Square Garden all weekend long for a star studded affair. Screens and tents are lined up on West 31st Street to block off fans and paparazzi. The NYPD ramped up its presence outside of the arena tonight, but teased what could be taking place inside, posting this video of a police chief reciting some familiar lyrics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY CHIEF TIMOTHY BEAUDETTE, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: I heard you calling on the megaphone. You need to calm down. Why do you got to be so mean? I knew you were trouble. I knew it.

This weather feels like a cruel summer. Welcome to New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Well, someone's having some fun out there. Let's get right to CNN's Brynn Gingras, who's right outside of Madison Square Garden, I should note, in the sweltering heat. So, Brynn, the Swifties know all too well that Taylor Swift is good at keeping secrets. But what have you been able to decipher so far about what's going on in there?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPODNENT: Yes, listen, Abby, we're actually getting quite a show here. The Swifties that did show up are getting the same kind of show. We're starting to see A Listers begin to arrive to this event. Might be running a behind schedule if I'm going to be honest with you, because we heard from sources this was supposed to start with a cocktail hour begun beginning at 4:30. It's now 5:00.

And if I get out of the way, you can see these SUVs lining up. These probably go 30 to 40 SUVs deep. So these SUVs as they come down 7th Avenue, which has been closed off to traffic, they then get escorted to the big tent that we saw erected over the last couple of days and then through the curtains and that's where they were able to check in.

We've seen some people just get out of their cars and, and go check in themselves, showing their IDs and then going into the party. But some A Listers, we believe we saw Hugh Grant, Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner. We've seen Benson Boone, we've seen a lot of people excited about this party. Like I said, it is expected to be going on right now in some form.

And we do expect actually the celebration, the ceremony to begin probably in the next a half hour or so, followed by of course, the big party. We've been hearing reports that possibly we're going to hear Stevie Nicks perform, maybe even Ed Sheeran, Tim McGraw. So a lot of these details still under wraps, but certainly the excitement around here is palpable as all these A Listers are now beginning to arrive to this party.

PHILLIP: Well, who among us has not arrived fashionably late to a cocktail party? Brynn Gingras, thank you very much, outside of Madison Square Garden.

I want to bring in now Charlotte Triggs, the editor in chief of PEOPLE magazine. So Charlotte, there have been obviously a lot of rumors swirling around that this big event, including what exactly they're going to do to this arena.

[17:05:00]

Who's in the bridal party? What are we learning about what is happening in this top secret affair right now?

CHARLOTTE TRIGGS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND GENERAL MANAGER, PEOPLE: Well, this is the kind of wedding that I don't think most of us have seen. I mean, it's like they have taken a venue that seats 50,000 people. I forget the capacity exactly. And they are transforming it from a sporting arena, you know, concert arena, into something that is going to look completely, completely transformed into like a fairy tale garden.

We have sources that said that they've seen the inside and it is absolutely majestic and beautiful and it looks like a classic wedding. It doesn't look like, you know, what you would think when you think MSG, you know, like the T-shirt guns and the pretzel vendors and popcorn. It's, you know, completely different vibe right now.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TRIGGS: And just, you know, they've tented off the seats so that that's not even going to be seen. So you're going to go in and really kind of have more of like a garden wedding vibe somehow.

PHILLIP: Somehow. We're looking at some live pictures outside of the garden. I was just told. OK, there you go. There he is. Jason Sudeikis walking in, hands up, so that no one stops him from getting into the wedding venue. So we're starting to see these guests trickling in for what is supposed to be the cocktail hour right now ceremony, obviously sometime after that. Do you think, though, that we will see any visuals of this wedding after the fact?

I heard you say there that you've got some great sources inside who are giving you a sense of it, but will we actually see it?

TRIGGS: Well, I'm going to choose optimism and I'm going to choose to manifest pictures. And what I would really love is a video. I heard that there are signs posted around MSG when you go in that, that everything is being filmed. Now that would be quite exciting. We know that she has a history of documenting her concert tours and of documenting a lot of things in her life.

And I would -- I would be quite down for that. But definitely manifesting pictures. I think that it would be in keeping with her traditions that she has going with her fans of sharing her big moments. I mean, she did proactively share her engagement pictures with people and she didn't have to do that. I mean, that could have been a private moment and they could have not even confirmed it, but they did. You know, I think she knows that she has got this.

PHILLIP: We're looking at. Sorry, Charlotte, to interrupt. We're looking at sports broadcaster Joe Buck walking in as well with the guest. Continue talking.

TRIGGS: Oh, I mean, you know, just to the guest list. I mean, they've got people from all corners of their combined universes. Right. I mean, it's like from their, you know, obviously they're -- they're close family. She's got all like a very sorry list of friends. There's a huge NFL presence. I mean, this is really going to be quite something. And I think that we would be being cheated as fans if we didn't get to see a picture of this at the end.

PHILLIP: Yes, I think her fans, I mean, her fans would be. They would love like a movie of the whole thing, you know, and they've gotten that from her at different points. So we'll see what we get. There were a lot of people who were saying, OK, maybe this isn't real. First of all, who gets married at Madison Square Garden? Others were critical of the way in which this event has really shut down that part of downtown Manhattan and all the resources involved in that.

What do you make of the decision to do it in this very public place while also trying to achieve a degree of incredible secrecy around it?

TRIGGS: It's kind of a counterintuitive location. Of course, I mean, most people would probably think Madison Square Garden, that's like the weirdest wedding venue ever. But actually, I mean, for her purpose, it might be genius. I mean, it's got complete security. It's got everything she needs in order to make it completely private and be able to control the images if she is shooting, God help us if she is shooting video, you know, to control all of that without any interference and whatever.

And also, in a way, I mean, she can't really just do it in her backyard. I mean, people would descend on if she -- if she did it in some little small town or some quaint place, I mean, people would sniff it out and they would descend on there. So in a way, the fact that this has the capacity to handle, I mean, they're expecting up to a thousand people, that it has that capacity and that it's in the middle of New York City and it's sort of self-contained and it's actually sort of nice.

It's a bit better than just shutting down an entire vacation destination that like regular people want to use. You know, there's no other concerts on the -- on the menu at Madison Square Garden until Jon Bon Jovi comes next week. So, you know, she's not in anybody's way.

PHILLIP: Why not.

TRIGGS: Kind of a weirdly generous thing. Yes, why not?

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, some wedding planners in the luxury business have estimated that something at the Garden could cost anywhere from 15 to $100 million. Do you have any sense of how that compares to other celebrity weddings that have been massive and expensive?

[17:10:06]

TRIGGS: I mean this -- this is an incredible expense for somebody who is -- there's no hope of recouping it, right? I mean, it's a personal expense. You're, you know, you're spending it, it's done. It's not like a concert where you can then sell tickets to it and you put as much into the, you know, fanfare and the decor and all of that as you then recoup in ticket sales. Like this is just a plain old bill that's going to be there.

But I mean, you know, to rent the garden has to be a massive, massive expense. And it's not just one day. They were in there for two days and they've been loading it for several days. So I mean, that is just going to be like a whopper of an expense. I actually think that in many ways the scale of this is more akin to a

royal wedding than what you normally see. Like just a celebrity wedding, you know what I mean? Like normally celebrity wedding, you see like a couple hundred people and whatever. And royal wedding, it's like, you know, you've got to invite everybody that you've ever encountered is expecting to go.

And you know, the big thing that I'm hoping that this is sort of like an American royal wedding and that they'll feel the need to share pictures and video with us. Right?

PHILLIP: Yes. Well, not many celebrities bigger than Taylor Swift at this point. Charlotte Triggs, editor-in-chief for PEOPLE magazine, thank you very much for that.

And next for us, the other big story right now, the suffocating heat up ending historic 4th of July weekend events will go live in the thick of it. We're standing by to see President Trump also leave for a major

address at Mount Rushmore tonight. Will he stop for reporters before getting on Air Force One? Well, we will be watching. We're back in a moment.

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[17:15:37]

PHILLIP: The National Lead this holiday weekend, the hottest day of this historic and dangerous heat wave is tightening its grip on the east coast with temperatures topping 100 degrees. Now the scorching heat is so severe it has upended some major Fourth of July plans. CNN has live team coverage. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is on D.C. s National Mall. And Danny Freeman is in Philadelphia.

Danny, let's start with you. Philadelphia actually canceled what was expected to be one of the nation's largest July 4th parades. I'm sure you're experiencing exactly why that is. Tell us what that has done to the city's plans.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, of course, Abby. You know, that was really the heartbreak of the day, that parade, which was going to be a massive parade that was going to go right by here, going to feature people from all over the country that had to be canceled because of the extreme heat.

A little bit of a silver lining. A lot of the acts who came to travel to Philadelphia to perform in that parade, they actually stood out here by Independence Hall behind me to actually put on shows for visitors. They just didn't have to actually march in the heat. So that was the silver lining there.

The other silver lining, or the good news, is that an event featuring the Pope earlier today that went off without a hitch. We're waiting right here for a concert with Idina Menzel and the Philly Pops. I just talked to one of the organizers that as of now is still on and you see people out here on the lawn already starting to gather. That show has been pushed back, though, until 8:00 p.m. so it's hot out here. I'm definitely feeling it. We're feeling it.

And the city is being extremely cautious. City of Philadelphia in a heat health emergency. But a lot of people are hoping that the festivities are not going to be dampened by an otherwise scorching hot weekend. Abby.

PHILLIP: And Derek Van Dam, the Great American State Fair just reopened around 5 o'clock after it was forced to close for a few hours because of the heat. What can you tell us about what's going on downtown Washington, DC?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Abby, people started to stream in just moments ago and it's a good sight to see. The music's back on. More of a festive atmosphere in here because earlier today it was grim. There were 44 patient contacts with the fire department from D.C. that they interacted with. Not confirming the numbers on heat related illnesses. But you can see why they had to cancel or at least postpone this event.

We're right under one of the main features of the event drawing crowds in here, the great Ferris wheel. And I want to show you this because it's encased in plexiglass. So you've got kind of almost a real life oven here, right. And I've got my temperature gauge. And on the inside of this, we're talking 120 degrees Fahrenheit to the touch. So obviously that's dangerous.

Amongst the extreme heat warnings that we have, the intense heat index values that are running along the entire I-95 corridor. You can see people lining up here now streaming in through the security tent. Again, this was completely bare of people earlier today when they postponed because of the heat. But it is still excruciating outside and it is going to be a long night with hopefully a lot of breaks, a lot of hydration breaks for people here.

PHILLIP: Wow, that's -- that's really unbelievable to see those temperatures in there. Hope they have a plan for the folks who are going up in that Ferris wheel. Derek Van Dam in Washington, D.C., Danny Freeman in Philadelphia, thank you both very much and stay cool out there.

And in New York, starting at midnight, the iconic Times Square Ball will drop eight times to mark every U.S. time zone. And Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will be live tonight for the celebration. Coverage is coming up at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN.

But first, Jake Tapper is back with a woman's lawsuit against the Trump administration after she was fired from the long respected Stars and Stripes newspaper.

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[17:23:52]

PHILLIP: In our law and Justice League, Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth getting heat from protesters near a Washington D.C. park. He was there Thursday to thank National Guard troops as part of the administration's safe and beautiful task force ceremony. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: This background noise this morning is perfect it's the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That's not the only pushback for Hagseth. He's also being sued by former Stars and Stripes ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, who was fired from her role in April. Smith helped maintain editorial independence for the military news publication by reporting to Congress. The Lead team reached out to the Pentagon about this case.

The spokesperson declined to comment, since the lawsuit is ongoing. But Jake Tapper sat down with Smyth earlier this week to discuss this all. Here's that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Jacqueline Smith joins us now. Jacqueline, thanks so much for doing this, talking to us. Your suit says that your First Amendment rights were violated,.

[17:25:01]

And Secretary Hegseth and other top officials at the Pentagon were, quote, working to undermine Stripe's editorial independence as part of a broader effort to control and neuter the mainstream media's ability to report on matters of national security and public interest.

Now, obviously, Hegseth's animosity towards the media is long established and we've detailed so many of the activities he's done. We should note this all happened after you published an opinion article about bringing back color comics, which, why do you think that op-ed made Hegseth so upset?

JACQUELINE SMITH, FORMER OMBUDSMAN, STARS AND STRIPES: It's hard to tell, Jake, because they didn't tell me. I had no communication from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth or Sean Parnell. Anyone there. So I can only surmise that it was in the lead of that column where I said, Pete Hegseth doesn't want you to read comics in your newspaper anymore. I guess he didn't like that.

And if I could say, it's actually rather ironic because back During World War II, General Patton also didn't like cartoons, Bill Malden's cartoons, specifically in the paper, and threatened to have him jailed. Then General Eisenhower said, no, support our troops. This is the soldiers' newspaper. We won't interfere. Well, I guess a lot has changed in those 80 years.

TAPPER: Or maybe not. Or maybe not if you're comparing Patton to Hegseth. In March, a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon's policy to limit independent press inside the building was unlawful. Shortly after that, the Pentagon announced a new set of restrictions on journalists, blocking access to an area known as the correspondence corridor.

Pentagon officials seem to be undeterred by the judge's ruling. They're just doing whatever they want to do. How confident are you that you might win your case?

SMITH: I can't say that I'm confident about it, but my purpose is to take a stand. It's the principle that I want to bring attention to. Win or lose, the public needs to know what's at stake here. I believe First Amendment rights, free press. And so that is my purpose. I have to stand up for the principle of it.

TAPPER: It's kind of unbelievable that whether or not there are comics or color comics in Stars and Stripes is something that the Secretary of Defense would even be weighing in on. There are no offense, and I say this as a huge fan of comics and color comics, but there are bigger issues for him to be deliberating.

You were in the middle of your three year term. Did your firing come as a shock to you? Walk us through that day.

SMITH: It did come as a shock. I did not expect it because the position, well, the position is really quite unique in that it was created by Congress and reports to Congress. So I thought there was protection. And of course, being a journalist, I know about First Amendment rights. When you write an opinion column, you have the expectation that you're protected by the First Amendment.

So when I found out on April 21st that I was fired, I was quite surprised. And I found out Sean Parnell told the publisher to tell me. And it was really just a form that said you're off the payroll. So I still don't have a reason why.

TAPPER: Back to the comics issue, you got a flood of feedback from readers after they were taken out of the Sunday Stars and Stripes paper. Tell us what you heard from service members about the comics and why they wanted them back.

SMITH: Hundreds of readers commented and they said, this is some relief for us. You know, we're out there fighting for the country, representing the country. Maybe they're overseas, away from their family back home. They need a little relief. At the same time, for some of them, the families are with them. We heard from family members who said, spouses who said, my kids love the comics. It gets them to read the paper. We see no sense in doing it.

Now, I have to say that removing the comics was part of a larger order of prohibition. And the word prohibited is what was used by Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg saying that Stars and Stripes is prohibited from purchasing syndicated material. So within that, that's where the comics come. Come in or go out.

TAPPER: Yes. Jacqueline Smith, thank you so much for your time today.

SMITH: Thank you for your interest.

(END VIDEO TAPE) PHILLIP: New live images from Mount Rushmore. President Trump is headed there tonight. He'll leave the White House any minute now.

And we're standing by to see if he speaks on his way out. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:34:26]

PHILLIP: In our Politics Lead, on the eve of the nation's 250th birthday, there's a new Gallup poll that finds that Um, percent of adults say that they're extremely proud to be an American. That is the lowest level since Gallup began tracking this 25 years ago. And the partisan divide in this is huge, 70 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Independents and only 14 percent of Democrats say that they're extremely proud to be American.

My favorite part of the show now, let's bring in our panel, Arlette Saenz. The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, is slamming some of the performers who did not appear at the Great American State Fair. There's been all kinds of controversy about this in part because it is run and managed by Trump, the Trump associates. But here's what he had to say, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:35:16]

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I think we have to give a big round of applause for our military band and singers, way better than those libtards that canceled on us. So much better. Thank you, guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So I mean for some of the performers, yes, the partisanship was a concern. President Trump now tonight is going to Mount Rushmore. He's going to deliver this speech. What do you think we realistically can expect from him on this occasion?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, his advisors say that both in his speech tonight at Mount Rushmore and in his speech tomorrow that he's going to talk about what makes America great. But as they talked about his event tomorrow, it's also going to be talking about the things that President Trump has accomplished. And right now it's difficult to see how he could offer a speech that is a fully unifying speech.

You talked about those polling numbers, people who are very frustrated with the state of the country and the direction that it's going in. Oftentimes you hear from President Trump's team that he's going to offer this unifying message, but then you see him kind of turn into a more partisan and divisive tone. I mean, even thinking back to his speech in 2020 when he was last at Mount Rushmore, that turned into a very dark and very divisive speech with a lot of themes that really served as the underlying themes of his 2020 run. And so it'll be interesting to see what exact tone he strikes tonight and tomorrow at a time when this is supposed to be a unifying moment for the country celebrating the 250th anniversary.

PHILLIP: We all know that he also would like to be up there with the other presidents on Mount Rushmore. So we'll see if that comes up. Megan --

ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL, GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION: There's probably a big betting thing going on if he says it.

PHILLIP: Yes, exactly. There's some kind of drinking game at home. So we showed you those poll numbers about how Democrats, their pride in America, according to the poll, at least, is pretty low. Ro Khanna, the congressman, spoke to our colleague, Dana Bash, just in the last hour. Let me play what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): So I feel such gratitude to the country, love for the country, and we're an extraordinary nation, not just with the Declaration of Independence, but our struggles of progress on racial issues, our defeat of communism, of Nazism, our force of being a moral light around the world. Of course, we have work to do, but we should celebrate the 250 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Megan, why is it, do you think, that Democrats are so reluctant to say that they are proud to be American? And maybe some of them won't say what Ro Khanna just said.

MEGHAN HAYS, FMR. WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think when you have spent the last couple of years being told that you are dumb or libtards, or that the commander-in- chief and the leader of our country doesn't like you, doesn't want you around, and any sort of criticism towards Trump is all of a sudden being unpatriotic, I think that's hard for people to swallow. A lot of people have fought in the military who are Democrats. A lot of people have been in public service, and a lot of people have a lot of pride in our country.

But when someone is constantly telling you you're terrible and horrible, of course you take that personally, and of course that starts to impact the way that people feel overall. So I think that, you know, to Arlette's point about being divisive, if the President wants people to come together, he needs to stop criticizing half the country. Half the country are not Republicans and don't agree with him, but that doesn't mean they don't believe in democracy and believe in the foundation of our country.

PHILLIP: And Ashley, I mean, there are a lot of ways to show patriotism, and I think for a lot of Democrats, they feel like being able to critique the country is part of that picture. I want to play, this is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani giving his own Independence Day speech, and kind of presenting an alternative vision than what we are hearing from the White House, at least according to him. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY: At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest. But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He's sitting behind George Washington's desk. Even the fact of delivering the speech, what do you make of what he had to say and the critique implicit in there of Trump?

DAVIS: I'm actually wondering if he's going to run for president in 2028. Is that actually what came to mind?

PHILLIP: Well, he can.

HAYS: He can.

PHILLIP: He can. He's a naturalized citizen. Yes.

DAVIS: But, that is true. But I, listen, I think that, first of all, I think that poll is probably people voting not necessarily about America, but just the fact that they don't like the President. I think that most of our country really loves what we have. And I actually want to take it a little bit higher and say, it's been so fun to watch all of these World Cup people come to the United States and actually get so excited about our country, whether it's the air conditioning or ranch dressing or whatever it is. I mean, that to me, sometimes because we do live in the greatest place on earth that we take advantage of what we have.

[17:40:25]

And so I think that if people, whether the Republicans or Democrats had the option to live elsewhere, they wouldn't. They're probably just mad because of it's Trump.

PHILLIP: All right, ladies, stay with us. We've got more to talk about. President Trump made a guest appearance on the Second Lady's podcast, but he took some swipes at past presidents while sitting in on story time with Usha Vance. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:14]

USHA VANCE, SECOND LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Do you have any time to read for fun these days?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So I end up reading mostly newspapers. I usually read stories about myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That's President Trump with Second Lady Usha Vance on her podcast, discussing his reading habits while reading from a children's book about former presidents and the sports they enjoyed. He also took the opportunity to take a jab at former President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's a picture of each. Jimmy as a tennis player, Barack Hussein Obama as a basketball player. I don't know if he's a good basketball player. I tend to doubt it. Actually, his favorite sport is golf.

VANCE: Oh, is that right?

TRUMP: Yes, but he won't be in the Masters anytime soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: All right, our panel's back with us. Yes, great. Great lesson for the kiddos there. Let's go ahead and take a swipe at your predecessor.

DAVIS: He did make fun of himself, too. I mean, I actually think that that showed a little bit more. I'm going to give him credit where credit's due. Obviously, I don't like the criticism of former presidents to children, but it was kind of nice.

PHILLIP: But?

DAVIS: But it was fine, it was fine.

PHILLIP: I mean.

DAVIS: It was fine. You're giving me a dirty look.

HAYS: I mean, I just don't understand why we were talking to children about other people being terrible at sports, and he said a lot of things.

DAVIS: But he also made fun of himself, too.

HAYS: I mean, and also the fact that he's admitting that he doesn't actually read, and he just reads newspapers, and it's probably just clips that people put in front of him. Also, I'd like to take note of the Oval Office and how terrible they have decorated it.

DAVIS: Everybody used to make fun of George Bush saying he didn't read, and I still argue that he is one of -- he was one of the toughest presidents ever to breathe.

PHILLIP: All right, let me play. This is one of the more strange things about President Trump, which is that whenever he's asked about Bill Clinton for some reason, he doesn't criticize him. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And then you have President Bill Clinton ran on a special jogging track. He had a little track built for him at the White House. I don't see myself doing that, I don't know. But he actually was a nice guy. I like Bill Clinton a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Meghan, isn't that odd? It is odd, but it's just, repeatedly, he's done this.

HAYS: I mean, I don't know how you criticize someone that balanced the budget and left a surplus for people, so when you're just adding more money to our deficit every day that you're in office, so it's odd, but I also think it's the New York, you know, he thinks that Bill Clinton is like this royalty in New York. Now, I know he's from Arkansas, but --

PHILLIP: In the before times, right, Arlette, before Trump was running MAGA, right? He was, I believe, at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.

SAENZ: Yes.

PHILLIP: So, I mean, they go back pretty far.

SAENZ: I mean, yes, there could have been some, you know, personal interactions, personal relationship, friendship between the two of them, and so perhaps that's what has kept him from going on the attack against Bill Clinton. I mean, obviously, Trump is not afraid to attack his predecessors in any way, but for some reason, it's this one that seems a little bit out of bounds for him.

PHILLIP: All right, I'll give Ashley on the self-deprecation. For this clip that I'm going to play for you, this is what he said, one of his, I guess, maybe his fears about what might happen as president. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He was our heaviest president, and I have to be careful, because I don't want to supersede his record. Anything like that would be possible if I allowed it to happen. For all of you out there watching, keep yourself in good shape, right? Like you, you're in such good shape.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That's one the kids can take home and listen to, I guess.

DAVIS: But he was making fun of kind of everybody. Anyway, obviously, he does this. I don't know if we, I mean, we can't hate absolutely everything he does. Remember, last night, we were talking about, what were we talking about? Oh, the 78 degrees for New York, and we can't criticize people all the time. Like, I'm not going to criticize the mayor for saying keep it 78 degrees. HAYS: That is very warm mouth.

DAVIS: I know, but he's trying to have --

HAYS: Way to lose weight. You're going to sweat it out, so it's a way to --

PHILLIP: I should say it's William Taft. This is who he is afraid of being compared to.

HAYS: Yes, and he eats a lot of McDonald's and Diet Coke. I mean, it's well known that he doesn't have a great diet, so we should be concerned about that, and we are having a heat wave here, so it is concerning. Yes, so today, Pope Leo actually accepted this award, the Liberty Medal from the U.S. National Constitution Center, and, you know, Pope Leo, President Trump, they've been kind of going tit for tat a little bit over the last few months, particularly when it comes to the issue of immigration, and the Pope had a message for America, but perhaps also for the President. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE LEO XIV: This historic anniversary presents us with the opportunity to reflect once again on the nation's founding principles and the hope that America will remain ever true to the dream that has earned it the title of land of the free and home of the brave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:50:15]

PHILLIP: You know, this coming from the first American Pope makes it very significant, but I think the dynamic also that this Pope has not backed down, and neither has the administration, J.D. Vance, who's a converted Catholic, firing back at the Pope as well. At what point, do you think they're just going to continue going down this road with the head of the Catholic Church, indefinitely?

SAENZ: I do think that they will continue to be at odds with this. It doesn't seem like Pope Leo is willing to back down in any way, because the way that he speaks about immigrants is the way that he believes that Christians should approach immigrants and people from other places, and it just doesn't seem like either President Trump or J.D. Vance are willing to deviate from their positions to kind of stop this back and forth between the two.

PHILLIP: Meghan, what do you make of J.D. Vance? At one point he said, I hope the Pope has learned something from our back and forth about immigration. Again, he converted to Catholicism just a couple years ago. What do you make of his decision to kind of take him on like that?

HAYS: I just don't think that J.D. Vance should be criticizing our Pope. I think it just shows a lack of history here, but also in the remarks that that Pope gave, he never mentioned Jesus. He talked about being a bully and how that's wrong and reminded people that we're a land of immigrants and that we could go back to that, and so I do think that the Pope is not going to back down.

He's not going to back down to J.D. Vance. He's not going to back down to Trump, and I just -- I think the Pope's message here is that maybe more peace and getting along and not being so divisive is what we should be looking forward to in the next 250 years, and I think that's the message that he was trying to convey today.

DAVIS: Well, I just think, I think it's ridiculous that a Pope and a President are fighting on, you know, social media no matter who it is, but I also think that, listen, we've been getting in trouble by the Pope for decades. George Bush got in trouble over Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, this is something that the Popes do believe in, which is Christianity, faith, spirituality, but I do say we are a country of immigrants, but I think the key there is the President's job is to make sure that we are a land of legal immigrants as well as safety, so there is a role for both of them there.

PHILLIP: All right, thank you all very much. Breaking news for us, an intense manhunt continues for the person who set off a bomb in a luxurious Monaco. There are major clues in the case, all having to do with a disguise, the image that's led to a worldwide alert. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:56:56]

PHILLIP: In our World Lead today, Interpol issued a red notice that is a worldwide law enforcement alert for a Ukrainian woman that they say is the main suspect in Monday's bombing in Monaco. The attack seriously injured a woman and a 13-year-old child, as well as a Ukrainian-born oligarch believed to have been the intended target. Prosecutors initially said that surveillance footage appeared to show a heavily built man in dark clothing. But as CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports, investigators soon learned that the suspect was actually a woman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice- over): An extraordinary twist in the tale of a bombing of a millionaire in a place of luxury where absolutely none of this is meant to happen. Monaco's prosecutors announced today they were seeking this woman, Anastasiia Berezovska, age 39, Ukrainian, but resident in Germany as prime suspect in the bombing of this Monaco residential building, where this man, Ukrainian millionaire Vadym Iermolaiev, and a woman and child were critically injured by a bomb hidden in a shopping bag. It all comes down to this individual caught on CCTV.

Prosecutors said they twice scouted the scene with the shopping bag that carried the bomb both two and three days before the bombing. But on the day before, they didn't. And instead, the exact same route was walked, back in tow, by this woman.

MORGAN RAYMOND, MONACO DEPUTY PROSECUTOR (through translator): It was then noted that on June 28th, 2026, the only day for which no observations had been made by the individual wearing the baseball cap, a woman followed the same route around the site of the explosion. Her route was the same as that of the individual wearing the baseball cap, and her behavior was similar when she was near the site of the explosion. This led to the conclusion that this woman, who had dark brown hair, was heavyset, and had a prominent tattoo on her right arm, might be the same person who had planted the explosive device.

WALSH (voice-over): The rest was easier in a place where there is a police officer for every 70 residents. There's not much other crime to solve, and a third of the residents are millionaires. Her rental car traced back to Germany, where she lived. And an Interpol Red notice issued the why still an issue? Why Iermolaiev? Why the half sophistication, a homemade remote controlled bomb and a suspect who got themselves filmed on scene.

Resident in Monaco about five years, Iermolaiev had no obvious links to the war in Ukraine. This apparent failed hit rattling a place sought for the luxury and tranquility that beams off the waters around it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Abby, some outstanding questions here. And clearly prosecutors keen to work out if she functioned on her own or if there were other perpetrators. It's a sophisticated device to some degree. Remote controlled, but homemade, too. And I think there are many wondering as well if indeed somebody else ordered this apparent hit. Abby?

[18:00:01]

PHILLIP: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Abby Phillip in for Jake Tapper today.