Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Leo XIV Begins First Homily as Pope in His Native English; Trump Signals Possible Cut on China Tariff from 145 Percent to 80 Percent; DOT Announces Plans to Build New Air Traffic Control System. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 09, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A historic day for the Catholic Church. The first U.S.-born pope performs his first mass as pontiff in the Sistine Chapel. What it tells us about his plans for the church's future.

And this just in, President Trump thinking out loud on social media, floating a significant cut to the 145 percent tariffs on China, but he says it's up to Scott B, Scott B being his treasury secretary, who's in Switzerland right now, ahead of talks with Chinese officials.

And the jury could be seated today at the criminal trial of Sean Combs, making way for opening statements in a sex trafficking and racketeering case on Monday. We're live outside the court.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: More history made by the new Pope. Pope Leo beginning his first homily in his first mass as Pope in American English, the newly elected pope calling on cardinals to recognize the marvels and blessings of God.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE LEO XIV: Through the ministry of Peter, you have called me to carry that cross and to be blessed with that mission. And I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The Pope pledged to be a faithful administrator of the church and in what may hint at his priorities, the Pope says that the church needs to continue missionary outreach around the world, ending his homily, urging the priesthood to show humility. That message coming from the first ever American Pope.

CNN's Erin Burnett is in St. Peter's Square this morning once more for us. And Erin, set the scene for what we heard this morning, what you're seeing there, and what is still to come. There are some big questions still. ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So many big questions. And Kate, as you were playing Pope Leo XIV, the beginning of his homily, that was ad-libbed. The homily, they put a transcript out. He had written that and he delivered that in Italian. But at the top, we had not seen that. So whether it was ad-libbed or he had jotted notes for himself, we don't know.

But it was it felt spontaneous. And as you say, it was the first time we have ever heard a pope speak in English anywhere. That was the Sistine Chapel.

But also, I guess it's worth emphasizing this American English in that American style, in that in that casual American style that we saw from him. And that is the history that is being made.

He gave his homily talking about a humble church, talking about a desire to bring people back to full faith. And then he and the Cardinals had lunch together. Now, of course, he's in his first full day as Pope.

And we have just found out in the past few minutes, Kate, that he's going to have his inauguration mass, his first mass where he is formally installed as pope. That will be next weekend. And that is where he will receive his papal ring, the fisherman's ring. And a lot will be seen in that as well.

You know, we look at we look at today. He spoke in English, the significance of that, that the first two readings were done by women. The very important meaning in that for so many Catholics, the ring choice will also carry that sort of meaning.

Pope Francis had such a simple ring. He had eschewed some of the more fancy gold of other popes. We'll see what this Pope chooses. It will be a choice that matters. So far, of course, we have seen him in a more traditional garb, going with a more ornate stole around his vestments, as opposed to the simple white worn by Pope Francis.

But we are just getting a feel. And I will say, Kate, when you saw him speak, and I think anybody watching feels this, it's not a religious thing. It's for anyone seeing a sort of humility, a softness and yet a firmness that he seems to exude that we have now seen in the several times we've seen him speak, including in English there in the Sistine Chapel moments ago.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Erin, thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Joining us now is friend of the pope and an Augustinian friar, Father John Lydon. Thank you so much for being here.

Pope Leo XIV has just finished his first mass as a newly chosen pope. What did you learn from how he did the mass that tells you about how he may lead the church? For example, we noticed that a nun read the first gospel this morning.

REV. JOHN LYDON, AUGUSTINIAN FRIAR AND FRIEND OF POPE LEO VIV: Yes, good morning. A pleasure to be with you. I know the pope well. We lived together 10 years in Peru, and I think the Pope I know from Peru is the same one that we see now on the television screens.

He's very open, wants an inclusive church, a church that embraces everybody.

[08:05:00]

So I think the presence of a woman religious is what Pope Francis had also begun.

I think his message, the part that he gave in English was to walk together. He said that with the cardinals that we have to walk together. So that's the synodal church that they call the church of dialogue with the world.

So I think that would be a blessing, not just to the church, I think it's a blessing to the world but so divided now and where so many people scream at each other that he's going to be a pope of dialogue and embracing everybody. And promoting peace and justice.

SIDNER: You mentioned that you lived and worked alongside Pope Leo when he was Cardinal Prevost in Peru for about a decade. I mean, what was he like? What were his priorities at that time?

LYDON: Yes, we worked in Trujillo, northern Peru, lived together and worked together there. We taught at the seminary together and we worked in the parish. He was the founder of our Augustinian house there in Trujillo and immediately went out and embraced the people and we started a parish there that had not existed before.

A parish that had the whole southern section was a very poor part of Trujillo. So he was very conscious of making sure that the poor were attended, that we started soup kitchens there as well. And so he treated with great dignity and the people loved him because of that, because the poor are not always treated with the same dignity as one should be treated with.

So I think that marks him.

SIDNER: Yes, it sounds like he leans very much towards the way that Pope Francis led the church. There are pictures of Pope Francis, for example, you know, washing the feet of the poor, which is such a beautiful symbolism.

But Pope Leo has dual citizenship, we've learned. He's a polyglot, speaks, you know, Italian and Latin and English and you name it. And we saw this curious headline from the National Catholic Reporter. And this is what it said.

It said, White smoke, black pope, question mark. Genealogists say Leo XIV has Louisiana African roots. Did he ever speak of his roots with you?

LYDON: Well, certainly I had not heard anything about Louisiana. I know that his mother's maiden name was Martinez, and that was from Spain and Portugal region. So I mean, that's where her roots would go.

I believe his father's is more French heritage. So maybe with the French or some Louisiana connection, but I never heard him talk about Louisiana. He spoke French early in his life. He spoke French. His uncle was a French professor. So he learned French shortly after learning English.

SIDNER: I just have to ask you one last question. You're in Chicago. Chicago's going crazy. Are you excited for the fact that he is a Chicago guy? He's a White Sox guy, for goodness sakes.

LYDON: Well, I'm actually new here in Chicago. I'm actually taking the job that he once had here. And I've only been here three months.

So I understand that the rivalry and he's a White Sox because he's from Southern Chicago, which is apparently how they divided here in the city. He used to make us pizzas in Peru, which another Chicago tradition.

SIDNER: Wait, father.

LYDON: Back when you couldn't really get pizzas.

SIDNER: Was it deep dish or was it something else?

LYDON: Well, this is the 90s in Peru, very poor. So we had to make the, you know, the mass to go around for a lot of people. So it was thin pizza.

SIDNER: That's a problem, father.

LYDON: Out of necessity, no necessarily out of pride. I know.

SIDNER: Father John Lydon, thank you so much.

LYDON: It was amazing for Peru anyway. I'm agreeing with you.

SIDNER: It's such a pleasure and good luck in your new role. Really appreciate your time this morning, John. --

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so just moments ago, President Trump posted that an 80 percent tariff on China seems right. So it's 145 percent now. So the president is floating a concession before discussions with China even begin this weekend.

And President Trump taps Fox host Jeanine Pirro as the interim top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. attorney's office.

[08:10:00]

Plus, the father of a teenage girl who killed two people in a Wisconsin school has now been charged with providing access, her access to the guns used in the attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: So breaking just a short time ago on social media, President Trump signaled a major concession in his tariff policy toward China. This is what he wrote.

80 percent tariff on China seems right. Up to Scott B.

Scott B is the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent.

[08:15:00]

The current tariff is 145 percent. So he's floating a 65 percent reduction in tariffs to China even before U.S. negotiators sit down with Chinese officials, Scott Bessent among them, this weekend in Switzerland.

With us now is former Press Secretary and then Vice President Joe Biden, Kendra Barkoff and Republican strategist and former RNC Communications Director Doug Heye. So that was fast. I mean, before the negotiations even start, you know, you drop your asking price 65 percent.

What's going on here, Doug?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think it's part of it is a reaction to what we've been seeing as either fewer container ships have been coming in or ships with fewer containers. And that a lot of those containers that have come from ports in China to ports in the U.S. have less product in them. And so there's a very real concern of what people are going to pay or are there going to be shelves that are empty?

These are bad visuals for Donald Trump. I think he knows that. It may be too late to save the immediate problem, but clearly he realizes that there's an ongoing issue here that could hurt him politically pretty severely.

I think it's smart to get ahead of this, but let's ultimately see where we end up. That's obviously much more important.

BERMAN: Obviously, 80 percent tariffs are still huge. You're still extraordinarily high, yet it's a lot lower than 145 percent. You know, Kendra, is this the art of the deal?

KENDRA BARKOFF, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO THEN VP JOE BIDEN: Well, look, we've seen his tariff policies to be erratic time and time again. And what we're seeing is a potential coming towards a recession.

Trump owns this economy. And what we're seeing with the up and downs is really going to start to affect workers. It's affecting prices. And, you know, I think he -- from what it seems like, he doesn't actually care about it.

He was asked yesterday in the Oval Office whether or not, you know, he cares about the workers in Seattle that, you know, are concerned that there aren't things being unloaded onto the port, that they are concerned about their jobs. And he sort of brushed by the question. So he actually does own this economy.

He is the president. The buck stops with him. And I just think these erratic tariff policies are a problem.

BERMAN: As long as we're talking about -- go ahead.

HEYE: Kendra's very smart to point out the dock workers in Seattle. This is -- tariffs are about American jobs. And ultimately, it's dock workers in Seattle. It's truck drivers who are going to deliver that from Seattle or Long Beach to every community in the country. Those are American jobs, and that's part of Trump's concern.

BERMAN: Another bit on Truth Social, just a short time ago, the president getting himself into the internal Republican negotiations over this tax bill that they're trying to mark up -- the big reconciliation plan they want to get before the House shortly.

The president floated the idea of raising taxes on the rich the other day. I think it was $2.5 million, people making over $2.5 million, raising it maybe 39.5 percent. Now he's saying the problem with that is they would be attached by radical left Democrat lunatics, he says, who would go around saying, read my lips. In other words, what they did to George H.W. Bush, not Democrats, by the way, but they said he went back on his tax pledge when he said, read my lips.

And then President Trump says, Republicans should probably not do it, but I'm OK if they do.

So Kendra, what is he signaling there that he's OK with raising taxes on the rich, that he's not? What is he trying to get out of this?

BARKOFF: I am not a Donald Trump mind reader by any stretch of the imagination. I don't even know if Donald Trump knows what he is trying to signal. We see one thing out of his mouth one day, you see something else out of the next day.

I mean, this is sort of par for the course. He likes the confusion. He likes to create the chaos. And you see that and you see what is happening with our economy as a result of all of that chaos he is creating.

BERMAN: Doug Heye, tax the rich, a Republican rallying cry?

HEYE: You know, in December of 2012, we were dealing with the Bush tax cut expiration in House and Senate leadership. And what the reality was is our members were not willing to go there.

And I remember a young cub reporter for CNN by the name of Kate Bolduan and another one by the name of Dana Bash. They would stake us out in the hallways. We would try and find alternate routes to get to our offices or to the House floor because we did not have good answers on how we could get to 218 votes on our own. And ultimately, it was a huge political fiasco for House Republicans and gave a lot of wind to Harry Reid and Barack Obama.

BERMAN: Whatever came -- whatever became of those plucky young reporters, I wonder.

I want to ask about Pope Leo XIV because this is fascinating on a global level. But also, look, there's politics in everything here.

And Politico had a great headline this morning. He said, America's first -- as in America's first Pope -- versus America first, which of course is a bit of a rallying cry of President Trump and his supporters. And this Pope is on the record, at least on a Twitter account, associated with him being somewhat critical of Trump immigration policies.

And the Pope's brother even commented on this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:00]

JOHN PREVOST, BROTHER OF POPE LEO XIV: I think he sees the United States as headed in the wrong direction in terms of immigration, that this is a total injustice. I don't know how he would handle that. It's a very difficult situation because you're going to offend someone one way or the other, no matter what.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's quite a moment for the country, Kendra, period. And an interesting moment in American politics if you have a Pope who speaks clear English and may take stands against some U.S. policy.

BARKOFF: Yes, I will just say, I mean, as a Jew myself, I was fascinated with what was unfolding yesterday, given everything we were seeing from the baseball stories to the fact that he is an American.

But I do think by him picking the name and showing that he is clearly a bridge builder, he shows that he has empathy and compassion. And that is the exact opposite, I think, of what you are seeing out of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, especially as it pertains to the immigration policies.

They just are cruel. And I just don't think that is what, from everything that I've read, this new pope stands for. He is about inclusivity. He is about being kind and thoughtful to people. And so, of course, you're going to see sort of a disconnect between them. And you've seen it.

He retweeted a bunch of things and pushed back on J.D. Vance as a result of his stance of what he views to be sort of the J.D. Vance and Trump policies on immigration. And so this pope is very different. And I think it'll be interesting to see sort of what comes out of it from there.

BERMAN: Yes, it was a Twitter account linked to his name. I will say the coolest thing I saw is one of the Chicago papers found a photo of him at a Chicago White Sox World Series game in 2005. And that's just cool, period.

All right, Kendra --

HEYE: Can I give a shout out to my home parish? Can I give a shout out to my home parish, St. Leo, the great church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that I grew up going to. They are as ecstatic about this announcement as the folks in Chicago are.

And as a Catholic myself, yesterday was such a phenomenal day.

BERMAN: Yes, it really is exciting for so many people, not just the United States, but in Peru, so many different places.

All right, Doug Heye, Kendra Barkoff, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: The Department of Transportation announces sweeping plans to overhaul the country's air traffic control system. What a former air traffic controller thinks of that. He's our guest next.

And it is a billion dollar industry in the U.S. How the president's tariffs could be impacting all sorts of baby products, from car seats to changing tables, to strollers for new parents. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, one in 11 million. An internal FAA report just obtained by CNN revealed that experts downplayed the odds of a communications outage at Newark Airport. They said they were extremely unlikely.

Outages like the 92 second radar blackout last week have repeatedly left controllers without the critical data on the planes they were tracking. The report comes as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced plans to build a brand new air traffic control system by 2028.

With us now is former air traffic controller, Todd Yeary. Todd, great to see you. How realistic is that to have a brand new system by 2028?

S. TODD YEARY, FORMER AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Well, good morning to you. Not sure how realistic it is. It is very aggressive and optimistic, but it's long overdue.

What I will say is we have to remember that in the meantime, we still have to maintain the national airspace system in its current form. And so the association with Newark, while it is alarming, it actually occurred at Philadelphia, TRACON, the redundancies in the system with associated airspace obviously worked because that TRACON handles traffic into Newark, Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia, most of Pennsylvania. And what you did not have was any loss of safety margin and no serious situations.

And so from that standpoint, the controllers did a tremendous job, but now those who appropriate the resources for the controllers to do their job have to make sure that they have what they need.

BERMAN: Well, let's talk about the controllers in your multi- generational air traffic control family. Technology is one thing. What do you think about how they are addressing the toll that this job takes on real people?

YEARY: Well, that is the fundamental question. This issue has its origin back in August of 1981. My late father was one of the controllers fired after the PATCO strike.

He returned back to work during the Clinton years in 1996, and we actually worked together for my last years with the agency.

Here's what we have is the attrition rate is the question. If you hire 3,000 people today and put them in training today, you cannot fully deploy them for up to three years.

In the meantime, you still have ongoing attrition. That is the fundamental question. And until there is some answer for that, I think the staffing will continue to be a concern.

Stress in an already stressful career field will continue to be a concern. And so I think we cannot overlook the obvious, trying to strive for the optimistic.

BERMAN: You know, you noted that part of this problem began back in your mind back in 1981. Politics is a play in everything in our daily life at this point. This administration is placing some of the blame on the air traffic control system, on the last administration of former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

What do you think about that? Is there any one administration that's to blame here?

YEARY: Well, I think we're placing blame on the wrong issue. Not how we got here, but why are we still here? Why has the system been so obstructive to the advancement of the air traffic control system development that it doesn't matter whether you're red or blue, what your party affiliation is, you could be politically agnostic.

[08:30:00]

But yet we still have these persistent issues. Hopefully, the reauthorization that was passed in 2024 and the Secretary's renewed commitment that we heard yesterday will finally interrupt this pattern of giving lip service to the development of the system in the air traffic control career field.

BERMAN: All right, Todd, Yeary. Great to see you today. Thank you so much. Your alarms going off. Glad to see you made the shot though. Appreciate it.

YEARLY: I heard the alarm.

BERMAN: All right, Todd, thank you very, very much.