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Musk Pushes "Kill The Bill" Campaign On Trump's Signature Legislation; Family Pleads For Immigrations Agents To Release High Schooler; Trump: Putin Will Respond To Ukraine's Drone Attacks. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:32:45]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking moments ago ahead of tomorrow's big May jobs report a new report showing job cuts last month were up 47 percent compared to May of last year.

CNN's Matt Egan is joining us now.

There are a lot of these reports that float around at this time of year. What else is this new report laying out?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Sara. Well, this is more evidence that the jobs market appears to be coming under more pressure.

So U.S.-based employers -- they announced almost 94,000 job cuts in May. The good news is this is down by 10 -- by 12 percent month-over- month versus April. But the bad news is, as you mentioned, this is up by 47 percent from the same month a year ago. And this is not just about one month, right? All year we've seen elevated levels of job cut announcements. In fact, so far this year the number of job cut announcements is up by 80 percent versus this same point last year.

Now obviously, there's a lot more uncertainty right now, right. Uncertainty over the direction of the economy, over the federal budget. Obviously, over trade policy, right?

We're in this moment where I'm not even confident where tariffs are going to be at the end of the day let alone the end of the year. So it's really hard for employers to plan right now. It makes sense that some of them are cautious about holding employees and some of them are cutting.

When we look at the trend for layoff announcements this shows the trend over the past 20 years. At this point in the calendar you can see, yes, it's very elevated. In fact, there's only two years that are higher. One of them is 2009 during the Great Recession. The other is 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, none of this is to say we're going into a recession. In fact, recession fears among economists and investors, they've come down a lot. But still this does speak to some caution here.

And when we look at the number of sectors where these layoffs are actually happening retail is one of them, and that's expected because you're seeing a lot of store closures. But also, you're seeing the fingerprints of DOGE because two of the sectors that have seen the biggest layoffs, nonprofits, right? DOGE has been cutting federal spending and canceling government contracts. And then obviously, the government itself.

[07:35:00]

And again, when you look at the reasons for layoffs DOGE is a contributing factor, but it's actually spread out beyond just DOGE. In fact, the leading the leading reason for layoffs in May was market and economic conditions followed by closings and restructurings, and then DOGE. So that does speak to just sort of broader concerns.

And Sara, just one last point. I know, as you mentioned, there's a lot of conflicting signals on the jobs markets, but the big number is coming out tomorrow. That's the official government jobs report. It's expected to show the unemployment rate stayed low at 4.2 percent, but hiring is expected to have slowed pretty significantly from 177,000 in April to 130,000.

But we'll wait and see what these numbers actually say. I think if it's close to the consensus that will reassure some people. If it's a bigger slowdown you could see some new concerns about the jobs market.

SIDNER: Yes, because off those numbers is always some concerns.

EGAN: Yes.

SIDNER: Thank you so much, Matt Egan --

EGAN: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: -- for that report -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It is now 7:35 a.m. and 28 seconds. We just checked Truth Social and President Trump still has yet to respond to one-time first friend Elon Musk after Musk really has been going full scorched earth on President Trump's huge policy agenda bill -- the tax and spending bill. The president is not usually this silent.

Musk did this barrage of tweets calling for lawmakers to kill the bill, saying it would explode the deficit. But privately, The Wall Street Journal says that President Trump is losing patience with Musk's outbursts.

With us now Errol Louis, political anchor for "SPECTRUM NEWS" and host of "The Big Deal With Errol Louis." And Matt Mowers, former Trump administration official.

You know, Politico has a really interesting take on this, Errol, which is that maybe instead of going after Musk what Trump did was change the subject. We've seen the travel ban overnight. You've seen the new investigations on Joe Biden. You've seen the new attacks on Harvard.

What do you think of that as a possible strategy?

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, "SPECTRUM NEWS," HOST, "THE BIG DEAL WITH ERROL LOUIS" (via Webex by Cisco): Oh, absolutely. That has very much always been a part of the Trump strategy. How do you put out a fire? Well, you start another fire. So we've got plenty to deal with. We could be talking about any number of different hot-button issues where the White House would like to disrupt the current arrangements.

And realistically John, when it comes to support for the legislation that the president favors this is not the critical week for that, you know. When we get a little bit closer to when the votes have been whipped and the vote is going to be taken, I think that's when whatever it is that Elon Musk feels like saying on Twitter is going to really start to matter.

BERMAN: Matt, a little more from Politico here in terms of Elon Musk's pulpit versus the president. It says, "Elon has quite the platform -- 220 million followers on one of the world's most influential social media platforms. But even Musk cannot complete with the bully pulpit of the American presidency. Musk can only tweet. Trump can pull the levers of power with brutal force."

Your thoughts?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL, PRESIDENT, VALCOUR GLOBAL PUBLIC STRATEGY (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. I mean, look, the President of the United States is always the singularly most powerful driver of news obviously in the world. And so it's the reason why presidents can move markets.

You know, the fact is that Elon Musk is an almost private citizen these days and has a right to his opinion. I think the president even recognizes that and also recognizes that obviously he's got some vested interest in the outcome potentially of what happens in the reconciliation bill. But at the end of the day it's the President of the United States who is the most powerful individual to drive this.

And you see him by taking the actions he took overnight, whether it's restricting entrance to the United States from countries that don't have proper vetting procedures or really applying that same type of criteria where there is not being provided enough information about those students who are here with visas as well.

And so what you're seeing the president do is use the levers of his power, yes, but he's also using levers of his power in the way he said he was going to do, which is to protect the interests and livelihoods of Americans.

BERMAN: Errol, I just want to give you one chance to respond to sort of the political arguments Matt was making there about the merits of the actions that President Trump took overnight, whether it be the travel ban or his increasing specific attacks on Harvard.

LOUIS: Well look, there's what the White House says and then there's the actual merits, right? I mean, one reason they are losing in court and injunction after injunction is being filed and the courts are slowing down this entire process is that it's obviously pretextual, right?

The president is at war with Harvard, and they come up with an action first and then they try and concoct some kind of an explanation that will go with it.

So, for example, with this incoming travel ban, apparently, the pretextual explanation is well, we just had this incident in California involving an Egyptian national. But somehow Egypt is not on the list of 12 nations where travel is going to be restricted.

[07:40:00]

It's obviously pretextual and it has nothing to do with the facts. There's the action first, the explanation second, the court injunction third. That seems to be the pattern.

BERMAN: Yeah.

Matt, very quickly, we do have a Truth Social from President Trump where he reposted something that Elon Musk had said nice about him where Musk had said, "As my scheduled time as a government employee comes to an end, I'd like to thank President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending." President Trump put that out yesterday.

I guess, very quickly, my question to you is why is the president so timid when it comes to Elon Musk? Normally if someone attacked him, he'd be right down his throat.

MOWERS: No, I don't think he's being timid. And look, Elon Musk hasn't personally attacked the president; he's been attacking members of Congress. So I don't think the president personalizes it that way.

And it -- and the truth is they have a strong working relationship, certainly during the campaign and certainly during the first six months or five months or so of this administration, and I'm sure they'll continue working on things together in the future. They just happen to have a disagreement on this one legislation and one priority piece of legislation.

BERMAN: The entire --

MOWERS: Can I just address one quick --

BERMAN: I'm sorry. Actually, unfortunately, I've got the entire legislative --

MOWERS: Of course.

BERMAN: -- agenda.

And Errol, I just wanted to give you one chance to talk about the New York mayoral debate next week which you'll be moderating. As many people know you are my favorite debate moderator. LOUIS: Ha, ha, ha. Well, we're going to have a great time. There were

nine candidates last night. It was a bit of a zoo. It kind of got out of control a little bit. We're going to have, I think, a different kind of conversation next week.

But there's a lot at stake. The election will be over. We're going to have a Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City 20 days from now. So there's a lot on the line.

BERMAN: A lot on the line in the Big Apple, indeed.

Errol Louis, Matt Mowers, great to see both of you. Thank you -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Co-sign on the loving of the Errol Louis moderator job, for sure.

Let's turn to this. The family of a Massachusetts high-schooler detained by ICE agents is now making a desperate plea. Watch this.

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My name is Daiane, Marcelo's mother. Please bring my son back. I miss my son so much.

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BOLDUAN: Marcelo is Marcelo Gomes da Silva. He's 18 years old and was detained after a traffic stop on his way to high school volleyball practice. The Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that he was not the target of the stop; his father was. Still, Marcelo was taken into federal custody.

The family's attorney says that Marcelo came to the United States lawfully from Brazil on a visitor visa and then got a student visa which has since lapsed. She says he has no criminal history. And now his local community is rallying around him demanding his release and raising money to help pay for his legal fees.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is tracking all of this for us. Polo, what is the very latest here?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The high school volleyball coach at the game that Marcelo was supposed to play on Wednesday said it best -- there is a tremendous amount of attention on this case. And he's right. There will be a lot of eyes later today on a court hearing that's scheduled for Marcelo Gomes da Silva as he will go before an immigration judge, and he will request that he be released on bond.

Let's remind viewers how all of this started. This was on Saturday when he, along with some teammates, was on their -- they were on their way to volleyball practice when they were detained by immigration authorities.

Now, DHS has repeatedly told us that the target of their investigation, as you mentioned, Kate -- that it was his dad. That they had received local reports from authorities that not only was he driving recklessly but that he was in the country illegally. Now, I still have questions about that. We've dug and we still have not found any actual traffic violations with his father's name on it, but we'll get back to that later.

We do know obviously that he was detained because authorities -- as they approached the car, they did not find the father but instead the son behind the wheel. So he was detained.

His attorney, Robin Nice, has said that there is much more to the story. That Marcelo entered the country legally back in 2013 on a visitor visa. He was eventually to become -- eventually became the recipient of a student visa though it's unclear when that expired, according to his attorney. And that it is intention -- his intention to apply for asylum if he has the opportunity.

And we heard from Robin Nice, the attorney, yesterday here on CNN that says look, they are not debating the validity of the removal order against this young man, though they do debate the need to detain a high school junior who we should note is 18 years old but has no criminal record and has longstanding ties to the community.

Now, ICE has claimed that his father is in the country illegally. It has not stopped him from speaking out. Here's a video that was shared with CNN from the attorney that's representing this young man as his father makes a plea directly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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JOAO PAULA, FATHER OF MARCELO GOMES DA SILVA: I love you, my son. We need Marcelo back home. It's not a family without him. We love America. Please bring my son back.

MIGUEL, BROTHER OF MARCELO GOMES DA SILVA: I just want to give him a hug back when he gets back. But ICE, please get him out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:45:05]

SANDOVAL: And that video shot reportedly in the student's own bedroom.

And remember, as early as January the Trump administration expressed its intention to really widen its enforcement scope, Kate, beyond just undocumented people with a violent criminal past. As we heard from Tom Homan back in January, and to quote him directly, "If you're in the country illegally you've got a problem."

So many would certainly point to this case as evidence that the administration is going through on that threat. But then there are others who will certainly point to this case as a reminder that there are families getting caught in this for the very first time facing law enforcement, including a high school volleyball player who was on his way to practice one moment and now is in ICE detention the other.

BOLDUAN: And a reminder that Tom Homan has also said many times that their focus first and foremost is "criminals and violent criminals." And it seems very clear that an 18-year-old -- this boy going to volleyball practice is not that.

SANDOVAL: That's right.

BOLDUAN: And you see -- we were showing video of just -- it looked like students and the entire community trying to rally to show --

SANDOVAL: (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: -- their support for him. Let's see what happens.

Polo, thank you for staying on top of this -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Today more potential heavy rains, even some possible tornadoes where flooding has already been awful. Kansas and Texas getting the brunt of it. And severe weather could hit millions of people heading into this weekend.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is at the weather center for us. Give us some sense of what you're seeing out there as Kansas and Texas suffer with these really heavy rains.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, that's right.

Well, the first thing to note is that some of these same areas had severe weather just a few days ago and now we're going to be getting some additional severe weather on top of it.

The video behind me -- you can see of some pretty intense flooding back from Kansas several days ago and now we're talking about more storms coming into Kansas. And not just the potential for flooding but also the potential for some tornadoes, some damaging winds, and also the potential for some hail as well.

It looks like we're losing a light here.

Anyway, we've got some strong showers and thunderstorms already that have passed through over the last few days. Dealing with a lot of total storm reports. Look at this. You're talking almost 300 total storm reports in just the last 72 hours.

Now one of the concerns there is this next system that's going to come in. So we've got this cold front that you can see right through here. We also have a low pressure system. And both of those areas will have the potential for some severe weather as we go through the rest of the day today.

So you can see the green area here. This is mostly focused across that portion of the cold front. You also have the yellow area right here. This is where we're going to be looking at probably the biggest potential for those strong to severe thunderstorms, some damaging winds, the potential for some tornadoes, and yes, even some hail.

You can see as we go through the late portion of the day today a lot of those showers and thunderstorms really begin to fire back up once we get the heating of the day. Same thing along the cold front. But then that low pressure system just kind of rides along the same region that cold front is in and will continue to bring the potential for some strong to severe thunderstorms not just Friday but also as we head into the weekend as well.

SIDNER: I'm not going to boo you that there's going to be rain on the weekend, but we'll leave it there.

Allison Chinchar, thank you so much -- appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Boo.

SIDNER: Boo. It's a small one.

BOLDUAN: This is a mini boo. An indirect boo.

Coming up for us new court filings reveal diary entries now from Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the horrific sidewalk murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Writings that include why and how he planned his attack.

And Meghan Markle putting out a family video -- a throwback video, if you will, that's getting a lot of attention. Pregnant, in the hospital, and dancing it out with Prince Harry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry doing "Baby Mama Dance."

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[07:51:53]

BOLDUAN: Welcome back.

We have new video we want to show you. We have new video we're going to show you right here, which is just released from Ukraine. It is of the massive drone strike that it launched deep inside Russia on multiple Russian airfields this weekend. The mission hit 41 Russian aircraft and caused $7 billion in damage.

President Trump spoke by phone yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for nearly and hour and a half -- of course, this being a topic.

And afterward Trump relayed his take on the call via social media and casually announced this. "President Putin says -- President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields."

The post didn't indicate that the president -- President Trump offered any pushback to that during his call with Putin. The very next sentence in that post is "We also discussed Iran."

Joining me right now is CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk. He was also the former Middle East and Africa coordinator for the National Security Council.

Leaning on all of your expertise and the fact that you've negotiated on many fronts with the players at hand, let's use the Social post to kind of take a step back and look at what is now multiple conflicts that are essentially stuck. You've got Russia and Ukraine, you've got Iran, and you've got Gaza.

Starting with -- starting with this, what do you make of the statement from Trump as he put it out there that kind of -- it seems just at face value saying that Vladimir Putin is going to have to respond in what he's saying there?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, FORMER MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA COORDINATOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, SENIOR FELLOW, BELFER CENTER, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: I think, Kate, taking a step back is right --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

MCGURK: -- negotiating with Iran, with Russia, with Hamas. I kind of have a realistic view of this and a lot of humility. But sometimes in trying to approach a diplomatic endeavor you have to take a step back and say are we trying to -- are we achieving our objective.

The objective in Ukraine is a ceasefire, OK?

BOLDUAN: Right.

MCGURK: Ukraine signed up to a ceasefire three months ago. There is no ceasefire in sight.

What troubles me about the statement yesterday --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

MCGURK: -- is that the Ukrainian attack against Russian military aircraft that were bombing Ukraine came after about 10 days of an unprecedented attack from Russia against Ukraine. Almost 1,000 missiles, drones. These are Iranian drones -- the same type of drones that have been attacking our troops in the Middle East over a number of years. And that was -- Ukraine was kind of responding to that.

And so there was nothing in the president's statement about hey, let's get back to ceasefire talks. Let's have some restraint.

BOLDUAN: Right.

MCGURK: It was basically accepting this war is going to escalate.

I'd say a couple of things, Kate. When you back up and let's kind of look at our assumptions -- where are we heading.

BOLDUAN: Yes. So how do you unstick this, right?

MCGURK: I would -- if I was advising the president, I'd say what's coming up on the agenda? A couple of things. He has the German chancellor in the Oval Office today. At the end of June two very important events. There will be a G7 summit in Canada with G7 allies, and then a NATO summit the president is going to in the Netherlands. Those are really critical events.

And you also have on the backdrop this bipartisan congressional bill that we've talked about in the past imposing sanctions on Russia with a massive bipartisan support in the Congress.

[07:55:00]

The president has an approach here that he can package up by the end of June to go back to the Russians and say look, I understand this war is going to continue. We're not approaching a ceasefire anytime soon. But also, it's not going to cost-free for you. So eventually we've got to get back to the table.

What I'm concerned about is if the president decides this is too hard and backs off and Putin has free rein; I think Ukraine is in deep trouble and this war is only going to get worse.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

MCGURK: So there's no ceasefire in sight, but he has some cards to play here -- to use a euphemism he used with Zelenskyy --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

MCGURK: -- and I would advise the president to play them over the course of the next few weeks.

BOLDUAN: That's very interesting and really important how you frame it and what really needs to be a holistic approach to how to go back and get them back to the table.

You mentioned Iran. So also in this social media post the president says that Putin offered to help in the nuclear talks with Iran -- the same Iran that's been helping Putin carry out this war in Ukraine.

The supreme leader just announced that -- denounced, rather, the latest U.S. proposal. CNN's reporting of that is the U.S. could invest in Iran's civilian nuclear power program. Join a consortium that would oversee the enrichment of low-level uranium inside of Iran.

You've negotiated deals with Iran. How stuck is this one, and should Russia be helping?

MCGURK: I think before you approach the Russians to help on Iran remember Putin, in April, signed a strategic alliance agreement with Iran. Iran is supporting Russia --

BOLDUAN: Right.

MCGURK: -- in Ukraine.

BOLDUAN: That's why -- that's why I'm scratching my head.

MCGURK: So I think before you approach the Russians on Iran you want to shore up your allies.

Here's an important thing about the Iran negotiations. There's a clock here, OK? There's something called snapback. Under the Obama-era deal even critics of the deal -- they liked this provision. Any member of that deal can snap back all international sanctions. The French and the Brits have said they are prepared to do that in August, but that authority expires under the deal in October.

That's a huge card against the Iranians. I think the Iranians want to string this along and get beyond that deadline.

And it's very important I think to try to get this deal done over the coming months. We have a lot of leverage against the Iranians. Iran is in deep, deep trouble.

But you need a coordinated approach with the -- with our allies. And I would not -- I don't think the Russians are going to be all that helpful on this one.

BOLDUAN: An understatement at the moment.

But it is great to see you, Brett.

MCGURK: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you very much.

MCGURK: Good to see you.

BOLDUAN: It's always good to have you here -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. This morning the urgent manhunt is expanding for the father suspected of killing his three young daughters in Washington State. The FBI, U.S. Marshals, and border patrol are trying to find 32-year-old Travis Decker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF MIKE MORRISON, CHELAN COUNTY, WASHINGTON: Travis, if you're out there seeing us, we'd like you to turn yourself in. We want a peaceful resolution to this but we're not going to relinquish our efforts and giving up any effort that we could proceed to track you down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And then there's this. Investigators say new video shows Decker on a Ring doorbell on those cameras in the days leading up to his last visit with his little girls.

Their mother called police after he was late bringing the girls home last weekend. She told officers that Decker was having mental health issues. Police say the girls' bodies were found about 100 yards from Decker's abandoned truck. They were nine, eight, and five years old.

All right. This morning Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has released never-before-seen video of her getting down, dropping it low, trying to induce labor ahead of the birth of her daughter Lilibet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry doing "Baby Mama Dance."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. You see Prince Harry there also trying to get in on those moves. Meghan released the video on Instagram to celebrate Lilibet's fourth birthday yesterday. She said she was a week past her due date and hoped that a little dancing would help get things moving -- John.

BERMAN: Good medicine.

All right. Court resumes tomorrow in the retrial of Karen Read. The judge canceled today's testimony because of the heat. It's growing more likely that Read will not testify. That's according to a new filing from her legal team. She is on trial again for the 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe.

CNN's Jean Casarez, who is covering this story -- the ins and outs -- is with us now.

And the defense had a witness on the stand that I think they're happy with, which was the snow plow driver.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN REPORTER: Absolutely happy because the defense has said Karen Read was framed. Something happening in that house. She didn't do anything.

And so yesterday they put on the snowplow driver that went past the house at 34 Fairview three different times and he made U-turns basically, so he went by a lot. And so he saw that front lawn. He said he could clearly see the front door. And then he was asked the pivotal question -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was on the ground on the Albert's lawn at that point in the area of the flagpole?

BRIAN LOUGHRAN, WITNESS: Nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see a six-foot-one, 216 pound man lying on that lawn?

LOUGHRAN: No. As I make my right onto Fairview, I notice that there's a vehicle on the right-hand side in the -- roughly in the area of the flagpole in front of 34 Fairview.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What type of vehicle was that?