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LAPD Declares All of Downtown L.A. an Unlawful Assembly Area; Trump's Sweeping New Travel Ban Now in Effect; Court Resumes in Sean Combs' Sex Trafficking Trial. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 09, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: breaking news out of Los Angeles. California's governor promising to sue the Trump administration. The president sent in the National Guard without the governor's sign off days after days of protest iver his sweeping immigration raids.

And overnight, the president's new travel ban took effect, banning people from a dozen nations from entering the United States as of today.

And severe weather to keep an eye out for today, the millions under threat from the Deep South to the Mid-Atlantic.

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: With the breaking news this morning, the sun rising over Los Angeles just a short time ago following a night of unrest on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Police have declared all of the downtown and unlawful assembly area as police and protesters clashed after President Trump did something that had not happened in 60 years. He deployed the National Guard without the consent of a state's governor, in this case, California's governor officers.

In riot gear seen firing flash bangs, tear gas, and rubber bullets at the crowds. At least 27 people were arrested on Sunday. And those demonstrations sparked by immigration raids across the state. Police are asking downtown businesses and residents to report any vandalism, damage or looting.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones has been on the ground all night and this morning in downtown where the sun is now up. What are you seeing now, Julia?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's actually a bit of a surreal scene here, John, because we have this heightened presence of the LAPD and the National Guard has a line right behind them here, guarding that federal building where we saw a lot of that action happen the past few days. And on the other side of us here is the 101 freeway that is now open. But that is what had been blocked by protesters yesterday. You know, we're not far from where we saw those self-driving cars being set on fire, and yet Los Angeles waking up and business as usual for so many Angelenos. You know, just a few hours ago, we still had protester over here actively protesting what they said was an overreach of the federal government. You know, we know these protestors started because of the immigration operations that took place starting on Friday and then Saturday and escalating. You know, that's what initially sparked the will from so many people to come out and protest initially peacefully, but then some then took to those acts of violence.

I want to play a sound bite from the Los Angeles Police Department chief on just how bad that was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JIM MCDONNELL, LOS ANGELES POLICE: When I look at the people who were out there doing the violence, that's not the people that we see during the day who are legitimately out there exercising their First Amendment rights, and to be able to express their feelings about the immigration enforcement issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And that distinction is important, John, because we have seen peaceful protests and we have seen these stunning images of violence happening overnight. And that goes to show how quickly things escalated here from Friday into Saturday and Sunday overnight. It was a response not just to these immigration raids but also to the announcement that the National Guard was coming to California and to their arrival.

We were here when that announcement came out and we saw the reaction from protesters. They have been saying no to these immigration raids and also asking the National Guard to leave. And so is the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, saying that this is an intentionally chaotic situation. She is blaming the president for the escalation of these tensions here, and so is the governor. As we've mentioned before, Governor Gavin Newsom saying that this is not necessary and now saying that he will sue the federal government over the legality of bringing the National Guard to Los Angeles.

[09:05:11]

BERMAN: Julia Vargas Jones and what you described as a surreal scene this morning as the sun comes up in downtown Los Angeles, thank you very much for that. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. This morning, four nationals from a dozen countries are now barred from entering the U.S. It's part of President Trump's sweeping new travel ban that went into effect at midnight. Most of the countries are in Africa and the Middle East. People from seven other countries are also facing a partial ban.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House for us. Kevin, what is the administration saying on this front this morning? KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, this ban could potentially affect tens of thousands of foreign nationals from those 12 countries that the White House says doesn't have proper vetting or screening procedure for their passports. They've also identified some of these countries as having high visa overstay rates in the United States, as you mentioned, an additional seven countries, nationals from those places could face partial travel restrictions.

What the State Department says is that this will apply only to people who are outside of the U.S. who don't currently have a visa that says they will continue to review and approve visa applications for these affected nations as appropriate, but it says that those applicants will be rejected unless they meet some of the criteria for the exceptions that have been listed out.

And it is quite a lengthy list of exceptions. It includes dual nationals, diplomats, athletes, and coaches who may be participating in major sporting events, including the World Cup or the L.A. Olympics, also adoptions, special immigrant visas for Afghans who may have helped the U.S. war effort there, and for certain people facing persecution from Iran.

Now, when the president announced this last week, he's framed this as an effort to prevent terror attacks in the United States. He timed it around that anti-Semitic attack that occurred in Boulder, Colorado. The alleged perpetrator of that attack is a national from Egypt. Egypt, we should mention, is not included in that list of nations.

Of course, this is all coming amid rising tensions over the president's immigration enforcement agenda, and I think there's some important parallels between this action and the president's decision to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles. Both of these, historically speaking, are fairly extreme steps that the president is taking. They're both actions that the president either attempted to take or thought about taking during his first term in office, but was stymied, in the case of the National Guard, by aides who essentially talked him out of it.

This time around the president appears to be less constrained, in particular when it comes to this travel ban. The administration clearly learning lessons from the first time around when that was challenged in court this time, making sure essentially that they're buttoned up on the rationale and the justification for why they're taking this step, that, according to legal experts, could make this more difficult to challenge in the courts this time around. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you for all your reporting there from the White House for us this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is John Sandweg. He's served as an acting director of ICE under President Obama. It's good to see you again, John.

Let's start with talking about what's happening in Los Angeles and the background to it is to the protests and the violence or the people were protesting federal raids on workplaces in L.A. How -- what do you think of how this is playing out?

JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: Well, Kate, I think a lot of this is a direct result of this pressure that we're hearing the administration's been placing on ICE, these quotas of 3,000 arrests a day. In order to get there, it required ICE to make a real shift in operational tactics, something I think, you know, we've anticipated for months now.

But they went away from the more surgical operations where they're going one by one, targeting individuals who had a nexus to the criminal justice system, so people have been convicted of a crime or arrested, ICE missed on the front end, going house by house, to more sweep-type tactics.

What we saw that really precipitated L.A. was, you know, hitting these Home Depot parking lots, going after these day laborers, those are much more indiscriminate operations, but it allows ICE to grab more people at once, making it easier for them to meet these quotas.

And so I think a lot of this is a direct byproduct to that shift that just amplified the pressure more and triggered the protests.

BOLDUAN: Yes. On the Home Depot, the sweep there, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, actually spoke to that and the impact of it yesterday. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KAREN BASS (D-LOS ANGELES, CA): What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration. When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and you cause panic.

[09:10:09]

BOLDUAN: How effective are operations like that, like this that we're talking about here, compared to the more targeted operations that you were talking about before?

SANDWEG: Well, in terms of volume, in terms of the number of arrests that you can make, the reason why they're appealing to ICE right now is they're under this tremendous pressure to ramp up those arrests. So, you get into a Home Depot parking lot, or you do like an area sweep, you go into an area where there's a high number of immigrants, you're going to catch a large number of undocumented immigrants, so you can make a lot of arrests.

The problem, Kate, is the quality of those arrests. This is indiscriminate and random, and, frankly, more likely to net you people with no nexus to the criminal justice system. Your transnational gang members, your hardened felons who've been deported and snuck back are rarely, you know, going to work. They're not the people you're finding in those work site operations. They're not the people they're finding in those Home Depot operations. So, you're going to drive up the number of arrests you make, which, again, this is what the pressure that the administration's put on ice, it's much more about how many people are arrested rather than the quality of those arrests, rather than getting that one really bad actor that might take, you know, hundreds of hours in order to identify, locate, and apprehend. Instead, you get hundreds of arrests in the Home Depot parking lot.

BOLDUAN: Just kind of dovetailing with this, the 3,000 you're talking about, we heard Stephen Miller from the White House say that's what they were looking for from ICE, to arrest a minimum of 3,000 people on a regular basis. What we know from ICE is the daily average in Trump's first 100 days is about a thousand people. So, you see the amount, the increase that would be needed in order to pick -- to make up that difference. That also now includes what we're seeing is ICE making arrests in and around courthouses as well. What do you think of that move?

SANDWEG: Yes, Kate. Again, a lot of these arrests, especially the arrests inside the immigration courts, don't make a lot of sense to me. There, you have individuals who are already in deportation proceedings who are showing up for court, right? We don't want to do anything to discourage that. And you're making an arrest of an individual who's already in the system, and it just tells me that, again, from a -- and, you know, you're doing that, just to rack up a quick statistic rather than to provide any public safety impact.

As it relates to the courthouses, of course, I don't object in limited circumstances where you might have an individual who might have a criminal history that you're arresting in a courthouse because it's safer. It's safer for the officers because people have to go through security screening before they go through the courtroom. The problem, of course, becomes very quickly you create a chilling effect, where now you're going to have immigrants not showing up in courts.

As it relates to the immigration courts, again, I just think that's nonsensical in many ways. It's just these are already individuals who are in the deportation proceedings. You're only arresting them for a statistic. And as it relates to the general courthouses, again, the thing you got to be careful of is just creating that chilling effect where witnesses and victims are scared to go to court. You know, and it can really impact the day-to-day administration of justice in this country.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's an interesting point. John, it's really good to see you. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right. A new day of testimony in the federal sex trafficking trial of Sean Combs, the defense pushes for a mistrial this time accusing prosecutors of misconduct.

Happening right now, the U.S. and China at the negotiating table will get an update on these crucial trade talks.

And Russia unleashes a record breaking wave of drones on Ukraine. Why these attacks are intensifying. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

SIDNER: All right. Court has just resumed for the fifth week of the federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean Combs. Over the weekend, his lawyers once again asked for a mistrial after accusing the prosecution of presenting false evidence of former girlfriend of Combs, who has testified under the name pseudonym of Jane returns to the stand this morning.

Now, she testified last week that Combs threatened to cut her off financially if she stopped taking part in so-called hotel nights with other men.

Joining me now, Trial Attorney Kelly Hyman. Thank you so much for being here.

Let's start with this fight over whether or not there should be a mistrial. The defense is saying you need to call a mistrial because of this claim that the prosecution presented testimony that it knew or should have known was material false. What are they referring to?

KELLY HYMAN, TRIAL ATTORNEY: So, in regards to the material false evidence, the defense is asserting that Cassie Ventura lied under oath, which would be perjury. And why they say that she lied is that Cassie Ventura said that she saw this balcony incident.

So, this balcony incident was in September, 2016 allegedly at Cassie Ventura's house, where Diddy held over the balcony, dangled one of Cassie Ventura's friends. And Cassie Ventura's friends testified to the fact that this happened and also had bruises as well.

But Diddy's attorney says that during this time period, Diddy was in New York. So, the prosecution knew this, but still let this evidence happened. And thus based on these false evidence, the judge should rule that there should be a mistrial.

SIDNER: All right. So, we'll wait to see about that. We are also going to hear more from the woman using the pseudonym Jane, who said that she was in a relationship with Sean Combs from 2021 until he was arrested in 2024.

[09:20:25]

And she testified that Combs asked her to smuggle drugs, would ply her with drugs so she could perform sexual acts. And that she, you know, told him that she didn't want to, or she wanted to stop doing this. And then she said that he threatened to sort of pull away financial help. How strong of a witness has this been?

HYMAN: She has been a powerful witness for the prosecution. She is the second most important witness for the prosecution, the first being Cassie Ventura, their star witness, who testified Diddy's ex- girlfriend. But Jane Doe, she's going under a pseudonym to protect her identity, is also an ex-girlfriend of Diddy. And so she is asserting that she dated Diddy from 2021 through 2024, and that she had these hotel nights, as she calls it, that she helped arrange these escorts come out to the, these hotel nights. She engaged in this and that she did not want to do it.

And this goes to the heart of the sex trafficking charge. It goes to the allegations of force, fraud or coercion. And she's asserting that Diddy, who pays her $10,000 a month, he's still actually paying her $10,000 a month right now, that based on that money that she was paid, that it was a way to financially coerce her into doing these performances.

SIDNER: When you look across this case, the prosecution said that their case would last about six weeks, and we are now in the fifth week. When you look across all of the testimony that has been very salacious, it has been shocking in so many days of testimony, has the prosecution really honed in on sex trafficking and racketeering with the witnesses that they put on the stand? In other words, have they come very close to proving their case?

HYMAN: the prosecution, like laying a house as brought its case, brick by brick, and using each one of the witnesses to help substantiate their case. To start, they had Cassie Ventura that testified as to the sex trafficking, that she was forced to do this as well.

Now, it's also important to remember that we had Capricorn Clark that goes to the RICO charge. RICO is a criminal enterprise, that there was some type of conspiracy. And in that, there has to be underlying claims, such as kidnapping, such as arson, according to Capricorn, that she was in fact kidnapped to go to Kid Cudi, who used to date Cassie Ventura. And he testified that someone blew up his car, which also helped substantiate the arson charge as well.

And then in regards to the transportation across state lines, we had Cassie Ventura help establish this, and also Jane Doe as well.

SIDNER: Yes. And you also have the defense that's going to come with their case, and they have been sort of throwing things out there saying, hey, there was no police action after this car was, you know, set alight. There were no charges that came to Sean Combs in any of this that you're hearing on the stand now.

So, it will be interesting to see what their case is. But, boy, there has been incredibly, incredibly shocking testimony laying out some of what the prosecution is trying to prove.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on, Kelly. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, President Trump deploys the National Guard and now his border czar says California's top officials could face a rest if they get in the way. Governor Newsom hitting right back, essentially saying, I'll see you in court.

And Apple's big annual developers' conference kicks off today, Tim Cook often taking the stage with big new products and big new announcements in hand. Why this year's event feels different. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

BERMAN: All right. The sun is now up over downtown Los Angeles after a night of protests and some clashes between protesters and law enforcement. President Trump has deployed the National Guard there amid these protests over sweeping ICE raids. Now, the National Guard is something neither the city's mayor nor California's governor asked for.

With us now is Hilda Solis, the chair pro tem of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

What is the current situation on the ground in downtown Los Angeles and what have been the reports you have heard about the damage overnight?

HILDA SOLIS, CHAIR PRO TEM, L.A. COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Well, I know that last night was probably one of the most volatile nights that we had in, in the city of Los Angeles, but now things have calmed down. There was this kind of a emergency situation where people needed to be removed or told to leave the city of Los Angeles because so much destruction and chaos was going on. That has since been lifted. There are still a major freeway on-ramps, off-ramps and road closures. People are coming back into the city to work, but it's very -- it's very measured.

I will say that I heard on our own reports that there were about 50 people that may have been arrested. There could be more. And, yes, you're correct in saying that the governor and our local law enforcement did not ask for the National Guard to be deployed. So, that is a point of contention.

However, I do know that our sheriff, Sheriff Luna, is really taking command over all of this.

[09:30:03]

And if there's necessary more legal assistance that we need, law enforcement, he is able.