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Black Smoke Billows as Third Ballot Brings No New Pope; Soon, Trump to Announce Major Trade Deal With the U.K.; CIA Bracing for Significant Cuts, Reorganization. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 08, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are in full-on chimney watch, votes underway at the Papal Conclave waiting for any sign that the cardinals have elected the next Pope.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we were also on full-on trade deal watch. President Trump this morning announcing he's locked in a, quote, major trade deal with the U.K. Very sure on details so far, but he's set to announce it this morning.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. And breaking overnight, dozens of people were taken into custody after a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University's library. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the visa status of protesters will now be reviewed.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: And the breaking news this morning, no news, not yet from the Papal Conclave. Just a short time ago, we saw black smoke billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. That means that no candidate has received the required two thirds vote, and the voting continues. When we see white smoke, eventually, we will know that the 133 cardinals have elected a new pope.

So, they've held three votes so far with two more scheduled in the afternoon. New images released by the Vatican show the cardinal sitting inside the Sistine Chapel. That was yesterday.

Let's get right to CNN's Erin Brett, who is in St. Peter's Square this morning. And each time they vote with no results, Erin, I think it ratchets up the drama just a little bit.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: It ratchets it up. And, you know, you had thousands and thousands of people gather. Actually, the numbers that we just got for last night when we saw the first smoke, the Vatican Media Office is now saying, John, that there were 45,000 people and you could see it down every street.

So, now at this very moment, as I am speaking, the cardinals are at Santa Marta. That is the sort of dorm-like hotel where they are sleeping in rooms assigned by lottery. They're having lunch and they'll have a little bit of a siesta. That's the way this goes. And then around 10:00 A.M. Eastern, they're going to be back in the Sistine Chapel and they will vote again.

But what's so important about what's happening right now, John, is that any conversations that are happening, there's little meeting rooms, that's happening now. That happens at lunch, where you'll see people try to solidify votes or figure out where we're going to go this afternoon. All the conversations happen there. When they go back into the Sistine Chapel around 10:00 A.M. Eastern, 4:00 here in Rome, that then they vote. That's all they do in there. It is silent, it is meditative.

You know, Christopher Lamb was saying he had heard, you know, one cardinal in a Conclave actually had brought a thriller novel because there's a lot of sitting now. It's mostly contemplative and solemn and religious. But the point is you're sitting and you're only voting and you're not talking, you're not hearing speeches.

So, that's what's going to happen this afternoon, vote and then vote. It went with alacrity this morning. It went faster than had been expected. The first vote, there was no pope, but on the first vote of a session, if there's no pope, there's no smoke at all. So, when we saw black smoke, we knew that was the second vote and we knew there was no pope. And it'll be the same thing this afternoon. If there is white smoke, there's a pope. If there's no smoke at all on that first vote, we won't know what happens until we see the actual smoke from the pope. So, we'll see.

The last two popes, John, have been chosen this afternoon. This is when we got Pope Francis. This is when Pope Benedict was selected. So, that would be the precedent. But, of course, this is an unprecedented situation. New cardinals, most of them chosen by Francis, most have never been in a Conclave before, and they do not have a common actual language. So, we'll see if we get a pope this afternoon.

But every time the vote comes, tens of thousands of people wait and the drama goes.

BERMAN: Yes. And you bring up such a good point. Right now is when the politicking is happening. Were this a political convention, they'd be in the smoke-filled room right now trying to make these deals. We'll see. We'll see if they come back this afternoon with movement.

Great to have you there, Erin Burnett, thank you very much.

[07:05:00]

Kate?

BOLDUAN: The other breaking news that we're watching this morning, President Trump announcing what he calls a major trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom. This would be the first deal that he has actually locked in since starting his trade war. And details of this deal though set to be revealed in a 10:00 A.M. press conference in the Oval Office. Now, the U.K., like every other country, is right now subject to a 10 percent baseline tariff from the United States and a 25 percent tariff on steel, aluminum and on autos.

CNN's Alayna Treene joining us from the White House with much more on this. So, what do -- it's more of what we don't know, I guess, this morning ahead of this announcement, but tell us what we got.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. Well, as you said, we got our first trade deal, Kate. We are going to learn more about it at 10:00 A.M. when the president gathers in the Oval Office with some United Kingdom officials for this, as the president is touting it major trade agreement.

Now, of course, this is welcome news to global markets, but even more welcome news to the White House and this Trump administration, which has really been facing increased pressure to announce any sort of progress and movement on these different trade negotiations, particularly as we continue to, you know, see the economic turmoil from the president's tariff policies.

Now, this trade agreement comes almost a month to the day that the president was forced to roll back his reciprocal tariffs because it had sent different markets spiraling. And so this should ease some of that.

Now, I do want to read for you because we've really seen the president, he is posting up a storm this morning, Kate. I want to read for you one of his latest posts on this. He said, quote, the agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come. Because of our longtime history and allegiance together, it is a great honor to have the United Kingdom as our first announcement. He says many other deals which are in serious stages of negotiations will be to follow.

Now, just to be clear here, despite his rhetoric and the administration's rhetoric that this is going to be a full and comprehensive deal, we know that trade agreements, real trade agreements, actually take a lot of time. They are complex negotiations. They go over the minutia of different, you know, tariff goods, non-tariff barriers, et cetera.

And so what we're likely to see today at 10:00 A.M. is some sort of memorandum of understanding. They'll probably lower some tariffs in the time being, but it'll take longer likely to really hash out the very specific details.

Now, as you mentioned, we don't actually know a lot of what is going into this agreement, but the Financial Times actually had a great story earlier this week laying out some of the parameters. They say that Trump is lining up tax breaks for tech giants, cheaper access to U.K. car and agriculture markets for American exports. And in return, the president is expected to lower steel and automobile tariffs. And so that's likely some of what we're going to see at 10:00 A.M. when they announce this agreement. Kate? BOLDUAN: All right. We'll be there with you. Thank you so much, Alayna Treene at the White House for us. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Brand new CNN reporting this morning from inside the CIA, the agency bracing for big cuts as we learn the CIA director could be acting as a buffer between the spy agency and the White House.

And we'll take you inside an air traffic control simulator to see what it is like during the terrifying moments air traffic control lost contact with the planes flying into Newark.

And today, the man accused of crashing his car through the gates of Jennifer Aniston's home will be in court facing felony stalking charges.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[07:10:00]

SIDNER: New CNN reporting inside the CIA as it braces for major changes. Deep cuts could be coming for the spy agency as the focus is now on CIA Chief John Ratcliffe and his tight relationship with the Trump White House.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis has this brand new reporting for us. What are you and the team hearing from inside the CIA right now as these cuts seem imminent?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Sara. What we have seen so far is that the CIA appears to have taken a slightly more deliberate approach to the sort of slash and burn across government that DOGE and the Trump administration has taken at other agencies. Staffing cuts have been done more slowly with some input from career officials, even as those firings have been challenged in court.

And we spoke to several officials who said that Ratcliffe seems to spend most of his time across the river at the White House, leaving some in the CIA workforce with the impression that he's very hands off, but really also preserving his relationship with Trump, and some sources of say, allowing him the latitude to kind of manage the agency on his own timeline. So, some career officials do really see Ratcliffe as kind of quietly acting as a sort of buffer between the White House and the CIA.

In a lot of ways, Ratcliffe has taken this very deliberately under the radar approach during his first few months on the job. He has met with the president behind closed doors. And compared to some other cabinet members, like Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, he's made only selective media appearances. But it's a fine line he's walking, maintaining favor with the White House and building trust with career rank and file officers at the same time, many of whom are like very worried about their jobs and not sure how much to trust Ratcliffe. But he's managed so far to kind of avoid any really nuclear level blunders, like, for example, adding a reporter to a sensitive signal chat.

[07:15:03]

And there're some signs that he is trying to do some pretty substantive stuff at the agency beyond just cuts that could really reshape the CIA for years to come. There is a quiet reorganization that is underway that would essentially seek to elevate covert operations, by hiring more officers to go into the field and fewer analysts to sit behind computer screens.

So, even though the agency is expecting cuts that will affect somewhere between 5 to 6 percent of the total workforce, those changes are unlikely to impact hiring at what's called the director of operations, which really handles kind of the spying business that the CIA does. These cuts are instead expected to positions that are currently held by analysts.

It's a pretty clear indicator, Sara, that under Trump, the CIA is prioritizing officials who operate in the field over those who work to make sense of the intelligence they gather.

SIDNER: Interesting, very important to have that analysis though from those who are behind the computer screens.

Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much. I appreciate your reporting this morning. John?

BERMAN: All right. This morning, one civil rights attorney calls it, quote, a devastating miscarriage of justice. Three former Memphis Police officers have been acquitted of state charges after a traffic stop turned into a fatal beating of a black man.

And the biggest carmaker in the world says President Trump's tariffs will erase more than $1 billion in profits in just two months.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. This morning, new reaction after a jury acquitted three former Memphis Police officers of state murder charges in the 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols. Nichols was beaten by officers after running away during a traffic stop. He died three days later.

Let's get right to CNN's Ryan Young in Memphis. And I emphasized the state charges because it's different than the federal convictions, Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's absolutely true, John. But if you remember back in 2023, there were a lot of protests around what happened to Tyre Nichols, and last night the police chief and the mayor both asked the city for calm after this verdict was read. And family members of the officers actually were very happy and very cheerful that they were able to be found not guilty, but we should warn our viewers about this video that we're going to show.

We're only going to show it once because we just want them to understand what happened here. And when this case took place with Tyre Nichols, the police department released some 67 minutes of video. And for a while, this city was protesting. It was upset. The officers were fired. People felt like all that video was going to lead to some sort of justice. Remember, Tyre Nichols, as he was being beaten, was calling for his mother. He was only blocks away from her home. They released the body camera video. They released video from above.

People thought they were going to see some real justice in this case. Well, they even brought in a jury from out of town, from Chattanooga, an all white jury, and after the deliberation of about eight hours, the officers were found not guilty.

Take a listen to the D.A.'s office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL HAGERMAN, SHELBY COUNTY DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: You know, it's disappointing, it's heartbreaking. You try cases. This is -- it's a business to trying cases though, okay? There's always risk and there's reward, but we keep on going. We try to get justice and I think we tried hard in there this week to get justice. I know the family was behind us and, you know, we didn't get the result we wanted or they wanted. But they've thought about Tyre obviously a lot this week and they're thinking about Tyre now.

STEVE MULROY, SHELBY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It's my hope that the public understands that this is part of the system and that our office will continue to push for accountability for everybody who violates the law, including, if not especially, those who are sworn to uphold it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes. John, the word accountability is what a lot of people were hoping for in this community, and we should talk about this. Because if we just talked about the court case, you wouldn't understand the underpinnings of what people are feeling in this community. They really feel there's a sort of sea of corruption here and they want to see real, massive change within the police department. They were being open when they released all this video, but now they want to see new laws put in place, especially when it centers around body camera and video, making sure those things are not turned off. The fact that some of these officers may have shared the photo of his body on the ground after he was beaten is something that disturbed so many people.

And as I talk to community members who are part of the protest, they want to work hand in hand with the police department. Because you got to understand the violence here in the city is high, they want to see police more involved, but at the same time, they want to see it done right. John? BERMAN: All Right. Ryan Young for us in Memphis this morning, Ryan, thank you for your reporting on this from the beginning. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Here's a quote for you. We are playing Russian roulette. That is how one air traffic controller who works at Newark Airport describes the current state of safety there. Today, a major announcement is coming from the secretary of transportation on how he plans to fix the system.

And a missing shoe and pieces of broken taillight, the new evidence coming into sharper focus now in the murder retrial of Karen Read.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, a pretty shocking announcement from the world's largest car maker. Toyota now says that it expects to see its profits plunge by as much as 21 percent this year. That is potentially tens of billions of dollars in losses. One reason, strain from President Trump's tariffs and also the weakness of the U.S. dollar.

Toyota says, not only does it face the risks and impacts of Trump's trade war, but also over a potential downturn in consumer sentiment if prices rise. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate.

Right now, we are still waiting for a new pope to be chosen. After another round of voting we saw the black smoke billowing from the chimneys this morning, signaling the cardinals fail to pick a new leader for the church just yet. Another round of voting is scheduled for this afternoon.

And joining us now is Dr. Susan Reynolds, she's an assistant professor of Catholic Studies at Emory University.

All right, let's start here. Do you expect that the card rolls will choose their pope today on the second day of the Concave? I know that I think Pope Francis.