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Closing Arguments Begin Tomorrow in Combs Criminal Trial; Trump Leaves NATO Summit with Different View of Alliance; Trump: U.S. Strikes on Iran So Bad That They Ended the War; RFK's New Vaccine Advisers to Study Established Vaccine Guidelines. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 25, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Closing arguments begin tomorrow in the Sean Diddy Combs racketeering and sex trafficking trial. This afternoon the defense and prosecution are set to return to court to discuss jury instructions with the judge. Combs, who opted not to testify, faces five criminal counts which include transportation to engage in prostitution.

He's pleaded not guilty to all charges and now faces up to life in prison if he's convicted of the most serious charges. CNN's Kara Skinnell is here with a preview of tomorrow's closing and Kara, prosecutors made some changes to his racketeering conspiracy charge. What did you hear about that?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris, we learned this overnight, that prosecutor said they are no longer going to argue to the jury that that Combs was engaged in attempted arson and attempted kidnapping. The jury did hear testimony about that involving rapper Kid Cudi. His car was set on fire as well as a former assistant of Combs who testified that she was kidnapped by Combs who had a gun on him and asked her to go with him to Kid Cudi's house.

There's still some lack of clarity here which we hope to learn more at the charging conference that starts about a half an hour from now about how this is going to be instructed to the jury. So there may be some changes. But they're they're saying in this letter that they're not going to argue those counts. Now they're not dropping the racketeering conspiracy, they're still pursuing that and there are still a number of other predicate acts.

These are the things that the jury would have to find Combs was guilty of in order to find him guilty of the racketeering conspiracy and that includes allegations of forced labor, of drug possession with intent to distribute, of traveling for prostitution, of witness tampering and of bribery. So certainly not a walk back from these charges in any way but it may reflect a bit of streamlining by the prosecution as this case is now heading toward the jury and that is -- that is something that, you know, once this charging conference is finished today both sides will understand exactly what the judge is going to tell the jury they need to find in order to find Combs guilty or what they need to find if they don't think that that was satisfied and to find him not guilty of those five criminal charges. So the conference is pretty in the weeds but it's very important for how the prosecution and the defense will shape their closing arguments which they'll deliver to the jury tomorrow -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: So Kara talk to us about how the defense is planning to shape their argument come tomorrow.

SCANNELL: So the prosecution theory in this case is pretty clear. They say that Combs had forced his former girlfriends Cassie Ventura and the woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane into having sex with male sex workers. Now the defense's argument all along has been that Combs was a bad boyfriend, that he physically beat Cassie Ventura.

They acknowledged that. The jury has seen photo evidence of that. They've seen the video, the hotel surveillance video of Combs kicking and dragging Ventura but they say that is not sex trafficking. And they have read to the jury repeatedly text messages sent real-time from both of these women who -- that indicated that they were in favor of participating in those hotel nights, those freak-offs, at least in that moment of time.

So they're really going to argue to the jury that the government has not met the burden that there was no coercion here and that Combs was a bad boyfriend. He might be guilty of domestic violence but he hasn't been charged with that -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell will be watching those closely -- those closing arguments closely. Thanks so much for joining us from New York.

Still ahead, President Trump says he's leaving the NATO summit with a more positive view of the alliance after several members agreed to spend more for their defense. We'll talk about the fallout when we come back.

[13:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Right now President Trump is on his way back to Washington after meeting with NATO allies in the Netherlands. The president scored a big win at this summit after criticizing NATO members for years for in his view not spending enough for their own defense. They have now agreed to set a higher spending target of 5 percent of their country's GDPs and now Trump says he has a friendlier view of NATO.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Without the United States we couldn't, they couldn't really have NATO. It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. It will in the future because now they're paying much more money but it wouldn't work. It was great.

And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off and we're here to help them protect their country. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:40:00]

KEILAR: We're joined now by the former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker. Ambassador, clearly Trump is walking away from this summit feeling very good, which is not always the case at these NATO summits. But I wonder how significant is this change of heart on NATO that he's describing? And do you think members can be more confident that the U.S. is there for them in the way that Article 5 is supposed to assure the U.S. is?

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Right, well, no one should be complacent. Everyone should stay focused. Making this commitment to 5 percent of GDP is great. Now people need to follow through and actually spend the money. And the reason for this is not only because Donald Trump was pushing them, but because we have Putin conducting the largest war in Europe since World War II as we speak.

And he has designs on rebuilding the entire Russian Empire. So we actually need to get these defense capabilities up.

But that being said, this was a very good day for NATO. And it's very reassuring to see Donald Trump now speaking more positively about the alliance and its purposes.

KEILAR: Speaking of Vladimir Putin, what do you think he might be thinking after hearing what Trump said about NATO? And also after Trump called him? I think he said difficult.

He's also saying that it's possible, he's conceiving it's possible Russia has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine.

VOLKER: Well, certainly Putin does have territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. But for President Trump to say that that is new and significant. I think Putin will have paid attention to that.

He will have paid attention to this 5 percent of GDP pledge because before he invaded Ukraine -- a full scale invasion in '22 that would never have happened. But because of that, he's now created this response of 5 percent of GDP.

And finally, I think he was a bit taken aback by those B-2 bombers going into Iran. I don't think he expected that from President Trump. And I don't think he expected that it would be as seamless an operation as it was. So I think Putin is taking notes.

KEILAR: During his press conference, Trump also seemed open to providing Patriot missiles to Ukraine, which is obviously something else that Putin would have been listening to. We've been seeing Ukrainian cities hit so hard by Russian attacks in recent weeks. How helpful would Patriot missiles be in this fight for Ukraine?

VOLKER: Well, well, to be clear, Ukraine already has access to Patriot missiles. They just don't have enough of them. And what President Trump was saying, I believe, is that it's a matter of reprioritization of where some of them are deployed so we could give more to Ukraine in order to help protect their cities.

That would also be significant not only for protecting people, but for the signal it sends to Vladimir Putin that the U.S. is willing to place a higher priority on air defense for Ukrainians. And that's going to thwart to some degree Putin's efforts to keep attacking.

KEILAR: As you mentioned, Iran, Israel hanging over this summit, hanging over this press conference for sure. So many questions about what intelligence Trump is relying on to conclude that Iran's nuclear program had been obliterated, as he said shortly after the strike. Is it any clearer to you what intelligence he is relying on?

VOLKER: Not at this stage, no. I think at this stage, we're probably dealing with satellite photographs, maybe some signals intelligence. But what you're really going to have is a lot of destruction deep underground.

And it's only going to be based on human sources much later, as that information comes out. Probably through Israel is how we will find this out. So it's going to take a while before we have a more concrete assessment as to what really happened.

The other part of this, independent of the damage caused, is what is the status of the already enriched uranium that the Iranians had? Because if they had moved that out of the facilities in advance of these strikes, they'll still have that stockpile. And we're going to have to figure out where it is and what can be done with it.

KEILAR: Trump brought up over and over again that today, the war between Israel and Iran is over. Do you see it that way?

VOLKER: I think it's a ceasefire. And I think it'll be a durable ceasefire. I don't see Iran ever giving up on its objectives of wiping Israel off the map.

And Israel is not going to allow itself to be wiped off the map. So the conflict between them remains. But if it can be defanged for a sustainable period now, where no one is fighting and shooting missiles and shooting drones, then that, I think, is already a vast improvement. And I do think it'll sustain for some time.

KEILAR: Ambassador Kurt Volker, thank you so much for your insights.

VOLKER: Thank you.

[13:45:00]

KEILAR: And still ahead, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s newly formed Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting for the first time, but it's already mired in controversy as CNN learns that a study on vaccines set to be presented at this meeting does not appear to exist.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Right now is the first meeting of the CDC's new revamped panel of vaccine advisors. And this new panel is controversial for a number of reasons.

[13:50:00]

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, announced new plans to study established vaccine guidelines. All seven members were just appointed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic, and he dismissed the 17 previous experts on this panel, saying that they had conflicts of interest.

KEILAR: Just before today's meeting, one of Kennedy's new appointees withdrew during a review of his financial holdings. The ACIP's new chair started the session defending his members, some of whom had been labeled anti-vaccine. He also explained why he himself did not get the COVID shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN KULLDORFF, CHAIR, CDC'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES: I used to be a professor of medicine at Harvard University and at Harvard Spring and Women's Hospitals until I was fired. I did not take the COVID vaccine because I already had immunity, superior immunity, from having had COVID.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's turn now to CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of surgery and medicine at George Washington University. I mean, just first off, looking at this panel broadly, Dr. Reiner, what do we know about the new seven outside CDC vaccine advisors and their backgrounds?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, what we know is that the panel is largely ill-equipped and unqualified to set vaccine policy for the United States. You know, ACIP has been, always been this highly respected, multidisciplinary panel of experts, you know, largely immunologists, vaccinologists, pediatricians, epidemiologists, who, you know, would meet quarterly and, you know, review, you know, specific immunization practices in the United States and make recommendations, which almost all the time were adopted by the CDC director.

And it's important to note that the recommendations from the panel typically are approved by the director of the CDC, and we have no director or acting director right now.

The person who would approve recommendations from this particular panel is the HHS Secretary, Mr. Kennedy, a lawyer with no training or experience in medicine or science.

And the panel is largely picked to basically support Mr. Kennedy's feelings that vaccines are unsafe. Many of the people on this panel have very well stated opinions about particularly, you know, the COVID vaccine or mRNA technology, you know, writ large.

And again, they are filling roles to support his longstanding vaccine skepticism.

SANCHEZ: What's your view, Doctor, of the claim from Kennedy that the previous panel of these 17 experts, that they all had conflicts of interest, and that's why they had to be dismissed?

REINER: Yes, so he -- well, we'll get to the conflicts of interest for his current panel in a moment. It's important to understand that every scientific panel asks panelists, you know, to explain whether they had any relationships with industry or any other outside entities that might have the appearance of conflicts. But the people that you appoint to these scientific committees are people that investigate vaccines and are involved in collaboration with industry.

So, you know, in other words, so specifically, he criticized the panel in the past for having experts involved in evaluating the safety of the rotavirus vaccine a decade ago, who had relationships with other companies making rotavirus vaccines. So if you want someone to understand the safety of such a vaccine, you have to hire people or engage people who have expertise in the space. And he conflates that kind of expertise with conflicts.

But on his panel, he has people who -- he has one member of the panel, Vicky Pebsworth, who basically is the leader of an entity, which was really founded to highlight vaccine injury. But that's not an established conflict of interest.

KEILAR: And then I wonder, the chair says they'll review, quote, interaction effects between different vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients, and the relative timing of different vaccines. What does that mean?

[13:55:00]

REINER: This is research -- this is research that has been done repeatedly throughout the years. You know, one of the greatest sort of faults of Mr. Kennedy's logic is this concept that finally, we're going to evaluate the safety of vaccines. Finally, we're going to evaluate vaccines versus placebos, the safety of vaccines in combinations with other vaccines.

Before every vaccine is brought to market, these kinds of studies are done. But when he basically promotes this notion that now we're going to see how vaccines behave in combinations with other vaccines, it promotes, you know, widespread concern in the public about the safety of vaccines.

And this comes at a time where vaccine adherence is dropping dramatically in the United States. Look at what's happening in West Texas and other parts of the Midwest right now with the largest measles outbreak in the last 20 years. This is promoted by this kind of vaccine hesitancy, which is now being promoted by the secretary of HHS.

SANCHEZ: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, appreciate your expertise. Thanks for joining us.

REINER: My pleasure.

SANCHEZ: As President Donald Trump pushes back against an early intel assessment on the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, lawmakers are demanding answers. We're going to speak with a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee when we come back.

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END