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Russian Aerial Assault Kills Four People, Injures Dozens In Ukraine; New Details On What Will Be In Trump's Dream Military Parade; Trump Says U.S.-China Trade Talks To Resume After Call With Xi. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 06, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning the billionaire breakup, if it is a breakup. Elon Musk, overnight, seemed to soften his tone after his relationship with President Trump melted down before our very eyes yesterday. Neither man is a stranger to divorce and if the split is not healed the question is who gets custody of the MAGA faithful?

With us now, Maura Gillespie, former press adviser to Republican House Speaker John Boehner. And Maria Cardona, CNN political commentator.

And I know you're both wondering because we're checking basically every minute to see if either of these gentlemen post on social media. Neither has for hours. It's been hours since either of them went after each other. So honestly, we don't know what's going to happen next but there are some things we can discuss about the impact going forward.

Maura, I think one of the most interesting questions is what about this bill? I mean, the split from Musk and Trump is over this huge piece of tax and spending legislation and even if they make up it's hard to imagine Musk changing his position on that. So what happens?

MAURA GILLESPIE, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, BLUESTACK STRATEGIES, FORMER PRESS ADVISER TO THEN-HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (via Webex by Cisco): I'm reminded of things we learned in elementary school. You know, you can take things out of the toothpaste tube, but you can't put it back in.

And so you can't take back what you said. Elon can't take back his feelings and his tweets about the bill and calling it disgusting and all the things he said.

And then he was able to sway a few -- a few members. You saw Marjorie Taylor Greene coming out and saying that she admittedly didn't read every piece of the bill and if it comes back in its same form she wouldn't vote for it.

So you do have some people who are concerned about the things that Elon Musk raised. But by and large, Republicans are going to stand by the president's agenda, which is what is encompassed by this bill.

And so the impact that Elon is having is weighing at least as far as Congress goes. I don't know about the American people.

BERMAN: It is interesting. As one person noted on social media, and I can't remember who it was, Elon Musk doesn't have to convince every Republican; he only needs to convince a few in the House or the Senate and it will sink this bill.

Maria Cardona nodding yes in affirmation of Elon Musk. Now you're a hero, apparently. No, what -- how do you feel about Elon Musk this morning? And what do Democrats -- as we look forward how do you think Democrats will approach him?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Sure. Look, I agree with Musk, and I think most Democrats do. This is an abomination. This bill is abominable. We probably don't agree in terms of why, but I will tell you Elon Musk is no hero to the Democrats.

But what this opens the door for us to do, John, is to underscore for the American people just how abominable this bill is and why it's so horrendous, and hurtful, and dangerous to middle-class and working- class Americans.

We already see polls that show that when Americans know what's in this bill a third of them hate it. A fourth of voters in battleground states hate it.

And so this has given Democrats the opportunity to really drill down and to show Americans that if this bill passes 16 million Americans will be kicked off their health care plans. Millions more will be kicked off of food assistance, including children, veterans, seniors. And it will add trillions -- or billions to the deficit while, at the same time, it will add millions of dollars to help Donald Trump make it easier for him to play golf and to give billions more in tax cuts to people like Elon Musk.

So I think that's a winning message for Democrats throughout the next weeks to try to convince maybe some of those Republicans who do agree with how egregious he cuts are for their own voters. Maybe we'll get enough to kill this bill completely, though I agree that ultimately it probably will pass because most Republicans will support Trump. But that will be a huge message going into the 2026 midterm elections for Democrats.

BERMAN: Again, focusing on how this might affect specific groups or people going forward.

Vice President J.D. Vance kind of in the middle here like kids are often in a divorce. One of the tweets that Elon Musk sort of endorsed was a tweet that read "President versus Elon. Who wins? My money is on Elon. Trump should be impeached, and J.D. Vance should replace him." Elon Musk sort of sub-tweeted and said, "Yes."

Maura, any positioning issues here for the vice president looking ahead who -- you know, he probably wants to be president one day. Probably wants Musk's money. So do you think he's going to come out and bash Musk if that's in vogue still in the White House later today? GILLESPIE: You know, it's very entertaining to watch all of this play out. Of course, we're all glued to the internet and watching Twitter or X -- whatever you want to call it. But the bottom line is this is embarrassing and it's very childish and it's embarrassing for us as a country that the leaders of our free world are engaging in Twitter battles.

So I think for most of us, and also for myself, I would hope that J.D. Vance is not going to engage in this kind of behavior and doesn't even tolerate it. Doesn't even engage with it because again, it's just unbecoming of the highest office in the land. And if he does hope to have a political future it's best to rise above the fray.

[07:35:05]

An Elon Musk is definitely below the fray at this point. He has put out some things that are pretty egregious and stark. So making accusations against the president like he has on X, and back and forth, right? It's unbecoming.

But I think that for the future of the GOP they need to focus on the task at hand and for them, that's getting this bill across the finish line. That's getting the work done for their district and their communities and for the people that they represent.

BERMAN: You know, Maria, one of the things, again, that Musk has leaned into, he talks about the 80 percent of people that he thinks are in the middle. That number is pretty high. But he says 80 percent of the people in the middle -- and he put a poll up overnight asking questions about that.

If Musk -- and I know this is a super hypothetical but he's musing about it and he hasn't stopped, at least as of 7:35 a.m. What if Musk all of a sudden dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the idea of a third party or a third way?

CARDONA: Um-hum. Look, I don't think we can ignore that possibility because one of the other tweets that really made Trump's head explode was when Elon Musk said that it was because of Musk that Trump won the election. And there's a lot of truth in that, John. Those hundreds of millions of dollars that Elon Musk put into the misinformation, and the lies, and the disinformation in his tweets on his own platform where he has hundreds of millions of followers -- that did a huge favor to Trump in winning the election.

And so I don't think that we can ignore if Musk is really serious about doing that because again, that kind of money can move voters.

Now, we also saw in Wisconsin he really invested tens of millions of dollars, and it didn't work. So we also understand the strength of voters.

Which, again, I go back to why it's so important for Democrats to take advantage of this situation and this moment in time where Elon Musk is underscoring the abomination of this bill and say yes, it is abominable and point out to working-class and middle-class families why.

BERMAN: Maura Gillespie, Maria Cardona, quite a moment. And again, as of now, it's been a long time -- several hours since we've heard from either of those men. Appreciate your time -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also breaking overnight Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at cities and targets across Ukraine, one of its biggest attacks since the war began. At least four people were killed in the capital of Kyiv. Nearly two dozen wounded.

We're going to show you some video that shows the moments that missiles hit. Just look at that impact -- hit a city in northwestern Ukraine.

According to President Trump, as you'll recall, he said that Russia's President Putin had told him he would be responding to Ukraine's unprecedented raids on airfields deep inside of Russia this past weekend.

In the Oval Office yesterday, President Trump said this about the war. "Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while."

CNN's Nic Robertson is tracking this one for us. Nic, what's the latest you're hearing about this massive attack?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, Russia is claiming this as its retaliatory strike. They're claiming that they hit all their targets.

The Ukrainians are saying this was one of the biggest -- 452 aerial missiles, drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. They say -- the Ukrainians say they intercepted 406 of them, which is sort of pretty much what they're normally doing -- the ratio of takedowns that they normally manage.

So that obviously flies in the face of Russian claiming that this was a victory, but that's very much what the Kremlin does. It doesn't actually have to -- actually have to do what it says. All it has to do is to convince the Russian population that it's winning -- and this was its response. So that's where that seems to be.

But what we're looking at here is an understanding that weekend after weekend now Russia is launching these massive barrages of drones. It was 400 -- more than 400 last night. That's a huge number. They could only manage 100 a month just last year.

So Russia is really ramping up the amount of munitions that it can pour onto Ukraine, which goes to the point of the Ukrainian officials being in Washington this week and asking for more air defense equipment from the United States.

But it also paints a picture of how Russia is really trying to ramp up its air campaign, and its pressure, and its ongoing military pressure on Ukraine. And to that point Ukrainian officials said last night when they had hints of intelligence that Russia was going to launch this massive onslaught and that Kyiv was going to be one of the principal targets, although cities all around the country were hit, they launched some preemptive strikes against some of the Russian airfields that will be used against them and hit some of their fuel storage capabilities there.

[07:40:00]

Look, the situation here is set for more of these massive type of strikes because that's what Russia is getting better at doing.

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

Nic Robertson, great to see you. Thank you so much for tracking all of this for us this morning -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Call it Hollywood magic. Tyrese Haliburton stuns Oklahoma City with a clutch game winner last night, lifting the Pacers to 111-110 victory -- yes, just one point -- over the Thunder.

CNN's Andy Scholes joining me now with the highlights. Exciting beyond. This reminds me of another game that I am going to bring up just to upset you -- the Florida-Houston game. But anyway --

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Uh, I --

SIDNER: -- at one point -- I mean --

SCHOLES: Sara, I thought you were going to talk about another Pacers game we've seen --

SIDNER: No.

SCHOLES: -- during these playoffs because this was deja vu. I mean, this is unbelievable. How many times have we said this about this Pacers team this postseason? At some point we may just need to start believing that they're a team of destiny and they're going to end up winning it all.

Indiana was down 15 with 9 1/2 to go in game one but they just kept on grinding, and they were red-hot from three-point land in the fourth. They made six of their 10 threes in the quarter. And it was a one- point game in the closing seconds.

Shae Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 38 for OKC -- he misses the jumper here. Rick Carlisle doesn't call time out. He lets Tyrese Haliburton do his thing. And like he's done all playoffs, he comes through in the clutch with the game-winner with just .3 seconds left on the clock. This was the latest game-winner in the NBA Finals since Michael Jordan in game one against the Jazz in '97.

The Pacers stun the Thunder taking game one 111-110.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TYRESE HALIBURTON, GUARD, INDIANA PACERS: We keep believing -- keep believing and we stay together. And it ain't over till it's over. It ain't over here till it hits zero and we just keep pushing. So like I said, I'm really proud of this group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yeah. Game two is Sunday in OKC.

Now, down the street from the finals Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany on hand to see their school, Texas Tech, force a game-winner -- or force a winner-take-all I should say in game three in the College World Series.

The Red Raiders' million-dollar pitcher NiJaree Canady throwing every single pitch for Tech during this World Series run. And with the tying run on third in the bottom of the seventh, Canady would get the strikeout to secure the 4-3 win.

So the title is going to be on the line tonight in game three between Texas and Texas Tech.

All right, and finally, Coco Gauff on to the French Open final for the second time in her career. She ended the fairytale run by French wildcard Lois Boisson. Coco winning 6-1, 6-2 and had some fun with the fact that the entire French crowd was on Boisson's side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COCO GAUFF, SEEKING SECOND MAJOR TITLE: I was mentally prepared during the match -- or before the match that it was going to be 99 percent for her, but I just tried to block it out. And actually, when you guys were chanting her name, I was saying to myself my name just to kind of -- just to kind of psyche.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yeah. So Coco is now going to face Aryna Sabalenka in the final tomorrow. And Sara, that should be a great one. Those two 5-5 against each other all-time, 1-1 in grand slams. Coco looking to win her second grand slam title of her career. Looking forward to that one.

SIDNER: Yeah. That's some strong mentality switching it up in your mind, ignoring the crowd, and coming out the winner. Big deal.

Andy Scholes, thank you so much appreciate it.

SCHOLES: Yeah, all right.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: Two things about Andy Scholes. Number one, he wrote a whole piece about the Indiana Pacers, like, a week ago.

SIDNER: Predicted.

BERMAN: Like, no one has been more on the Indiana Pacers than Andy Scholes, so looking like a smart man right now. And number two, on behalf of all of morning television, start these games earlier. I would love to see --

SIDNER: You really want to watch them.

BERMAN: I would love to see a little bit of them. Like, throw us a solid.

All right, fireworks, flyovers, and seven million pounds of military equipment. Preparations underway for the largest military parade that also just happens to fall on the president's birthday.

And new this morning a violent break-in at a hair salon. Yeah, the suspect's a deer.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:48:38]

BERMAN: All right. New this morning the U.S. Army is preparing for seven million pounds of military tanks, armored vehicles, and weapons to roll down Washington, D.C. streets and avenues to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday. President Trump has long pushed for a showy military parade and this one will happen to fall on his own birthday, June 14.

Let's get the very latest on this. CNN's Natasha Bertrand, who broke this story, is with us this morning. What are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well John, this is going to be a massive parade. It is the biggest military parade that D.C. has seen in decades and it is going to focus on the Army's 250th birthday. As you said, it also falls on President Trump's birthday, which is not necessarily a coincidence there.

But the president has been pushing for this kind of parade for many, many years now. He wanted one back in his first term. Officials at the time said that it was going to be too expensive and that it could damage D.C.'s streets.

Well now they see an opportunity -- the White House does -- for -- to hold this kind of Army parade on the Army's birthday. And so the Army has been planning for this for approximately two months to add a parade to the celebrations that it was already planning to host as part of its 250th birthday.

[07:50:00]

But this is going to be huge. There are going to be roughly seven million pounds of equipment hitting the streets of D.C. There is going to be Abrams tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue. There will be Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles. All things that have prompted a lot of concern about just how D.C. streets are going to be handling the weight of all of this equipment.

Now, we're told that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- they have been working on this problem for several months and they're extremely confident that all of the mitigation efforts that they have put in place here -- over $3 million worth of mitigation efforts are going to be enough to protect the streets of D.C.

They are putting down metal plates in approximately a dozen locations along the parade route, particularly where those tanks are going to be making sharp turns that could impact the streets. They also are putting new track pads on these tanks and these fighting vehicles to create kind of a separation between the metal and the asphalt. And importantly, they say these tanks and these heavy fighting vehicles -- they are going to be moving at a very slow pace -- essentially, walking pace.

So there is little concern as far as the Army is concerned that these are going to cause catastrophic damage to infrastructure. But still, this has been a major concern among city officials and among local officials just about whether underground gas pipe lines, for example, are going to be safe. The Army Corps of Engineers say that they have done a lot of preparation here -- a lot of work to ensure that this not going to cause significant damage to the streets of Washington, D.C.

But, of course, it's going to be a major event. There's going to be a lot of hardware here and the Army is very much looking forward to this and not concerned that it's going to be catastrophic or cause any significant damage in any way, John.

BERMAN: Quite a pageant, no doubt.

All right, Natasha Bertrand. Thank you so much for sharing your new reporting on this -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So this morning we are standing by for the release of the May jobs report and we'll bring you those numbers when they come out next hour.

This latest economic indicator comes after President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a long-awaited call yesterday and seemed to end what seems to be stalled trade talks really brought back from the brink. President Trump described the call as "very positive" but offered no clear path toward resolving the ongoing tensions between the nations.

Let's talk about this. Joining us right now is CNN global economic analyst and associate editor for the -- for the Financial Times, Rana Foroohar.

Rana, let's start with jobs. The jobs report coming out about 30-ish minutes from now. What are the expectations or what are you looking for inside these numbers?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIST, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, FINANCIAL TIMES (via Webex by Cisco): So expectations are pretty modest, Kate. I think that you're going to see probably soft numbers. You may not see the unemployment rate move.

I'm going to be looking for what the composition of jobs is. If you -- if you see what you have seen in the JOLTS report that came a few days before, which is media jobs, travel and tourism jobs, and maybe some mining and minerals jobs. That's something that the president is going to push. That's going to create a picture of modest job growth. Some high-wage but mostly low-wage jobs.

So that makes me think that we are slowly but surely entering a period of softening. That's what I'm expecting.

Now, if you were to see just a crazy high number, that would be yet another interesting indicator of the robustness of the U.S. economy, and we've seen a few of those. I mean, the fact is that we came from the best recovery -- post-COVID recovery in the rich world. It's been hard to run that down even though the president has done a lot of things that have contributed to that, including the trade war, the deficit, the budget bill. The bond market doesn't like any of this.

But jobs have been more solid to this point than I thought they would be.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

I want to talk about the budget bill in just a sec, but on that call -- on the call between Trump and Xi Jinping how important is it that the two men just actually jumped on the line given we're talking about the world's two largest economies and what has really become like this very uncertain tension, trade war, trade truce, issues around mineral exports that has just -- it's been a very confusing time, which isn't good for anyone.

FOROOHAR: No. I think it's actually pretty important that they got on the phone.

You know, for years now there has been actually a decline in communication not only between the leaders of these two nations but the folks right below them. The folks in the cabinet and even the sub- cabinet positions -- oftentimes they don't even have counterparts in Beijing. And so that lack of communication I think is one of the reasons why we are where we are.

You know, you really need those lines to be solid. You need people to be talking. That hasn't happened. So I want to keep my -- manage my expectations here but I do think --

[07:55:00]

BOLDUAN: Right.

FOROOHAR: -- it's a good thing that they're on the phone.

BOLDUAN: On the budget bill -- and connected to all of it is this very public and very messy fight and breakup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump now. You are watching this closely. I think for -- in a -- in a -- you have a really unique perspective on why this is so important not just because it's really strange to watch playing out but the impact of this fight that we're watching between these two men.

FOROOHAR: Yeah. It's not about it being good to TV, it's about the fact that these kinds of fights between a leader and an oligarch -- this is what you see in banana republics. This is what you see in emerging markets. This is what you've traditionally seen in countries with very high risk premiums. These are the kind of places that investors don't want to go because they're worried about coups and about three guys running the economy, and that's not stable.

This is the kind of thing that I'm going to watch and see how is the bond reacting. You know, we've already seen Tesla's stock slump but how is the bond market going to react? The U.S. needs foreign investors right now to prop up the bond market. Are they going to look at this ridiculous fight and say boy, this is yet another reason, along with rising debt and deficit and a budget bill that's cutting tax on the rich, to say you know what? The U.S. has lost its mojo and we're going to invest elsewhere.

BOLDUAN: Rana, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming in -- Sara.

SIDNER: Ahead, the FBI says it has thwarted a potential mass shooting by a teenager at a mall in Kelso, Washington. That teen accused of planning to detonate a chlorine bomb to create panic before shooting people as they ran out.

Authorities arrested the teen on May 22 in Oregon after the FBI says it determined the suspect solely planned on carrying out this attack. The special agency in charge told reporters the plot was "as serious as it gets."

A fuel leak may have been the cause of a fire that led to the evacuation of an American Airlines flight in Denver back in March. The preliminary NTSB report also says there was a piece of a fractured fan blade in the right engine and another engine part was "incorrectly fastened."

The flight had to land in Denver shortly after taking off from Colorado Springs. Airport workers put out that fire within a minute. No one luckily was seriously injured.

A final report expected next year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE OFFICER: Stop, bro. I know you're freaking out. Chill for a second.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: I don't think the intruder could understand him but that's how a police officer tried to nab the unusual suspect who broke into a hair salon in Iowa. Body camera video you see showing there the deer running through the salon. It's hurting itself trying to break glass from a window. And it took three officers to finally get that deer out of there -- John.

BERMAN: That deer was just looking for a buck.

All right.

SIDNER: Oh my gosh.

BERMAN: Happening now a huge bloom of seaweed is invading Caribbean coastlines and is moving closer to Florida beaches. This giant blob now stretches more than 5,000 miles across the Atlantic. It stinks. I mean, literally and figuratively, it smells really bad and does pose some health risks to both people -- humans and animals.

Let's get right to CNN's Derek Van Dam for the latest. Derek, what are you learning?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, floating, brown islands of algae washing to shore. What could go wrong, right, John?

Well, this sargassum, as it's known, actually has two sides of the coin. Some intrepid scientists realized that they could actually convert this harmful algae bloom into a biomass fuel, so there's that. But, of course, cons is when it washes ashore in plenty right during the peak of tourist season, repelling tourists.

And take if from this meteorologist, I've seen it on some of my past vacations. It smells awful and it piles up on the shorelines of these beautiful white, sandy beaches.

The azure blue ocean in the distance and then you're left with this. There's really not much you can do but rake it up into piles. Of course, it rots under the summer sun.

And it can clog the marinas. Look at this picture taken back in May of a marina in Miami, Florida. That's not what you want to see.

So check this out. We were able to actually map this out -- and by the way, this sargassum or the harmful algae bloom stretches over 5,000 miles from the eastern Atlantic right through to the Gulf, reaching the shores of Florida as well. It's, in fact, above average in all basins across the Atlantic as we speak.

So what's driving this? Of course, it's the rising ocean temperatures, two to four degrees above where they should be. This is spurring that sargassum surplus.

But this is very interesting as well. Deeper into our research we're finding that there's an excess of nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers from the America's Heartland as well as the Amazon Basin that filters into the ocean.