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Trump Suggests Some Tariffs Could Be Permanent; Brazilian Police Thwarted Bomb Plot Targeting Lady Gaga Concert; Catholics Mark Final Day Of Mourning For Pope Francis; Trump Posts He Wants 100 Percent Tariffs On "Any and All Movies" That Are Produced In Foreign Lands; Inside The Fight To Save Florida's Beloved Manatees. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired May 04, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:24]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

Americans could soon, very soon feel the impacts of President Trump's sweeping tariffs, with economists warning of higher prices and major shortages. But Trump, in a new interview, is suggesting some taxes on foreign goods may be here to stay. Trump's tariff brought trade with China to a grinding halt. He now appears to be doubling down on that. Meantime, the White House has been touting progress on trade talks. But tonight, another week is coming to an end and we still don't have any concrete details on deals being made.

We've got both sides of that story covered tonight with CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the president spent the weekend, and CNN correspondent Marc Stewart live in Beijing.

Marc, let's start first with you. It is already Monday morning in Beijing. Is China creating a true opening for talks? Where does this all stand?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Jessica. I think first and foremost, potential is going to be the key word in all of this because when Beijing brought up the idea, first brought up the idea of having discussions with the U.S. back on Friday, it made it very clear it was responding to overtures that were initiated by the United States. This was not something that China sought out to do.

So China is going to use some caution because the last thing it wants is to appear as if it's taking cues and calls from the United States about what to do. And if things do move forward China is going to set a series of conditions in the sense that something will have to be done in order to get China and the U.S. at the negotiating table, such as the elimination of some of these tariffs that we currently see on the books.

China is not afraid to fight. We just saw a video that was recently released on Chinese social media talking about how China will not kneel down, how it will fight bullying, and how it needs to be defined. It should not allow the U.S. to tell it what it can do in this current environment. So China very much prepared to play the long game. The question is, will Washington be willing to wait and play this game of compromise, if you will, with China -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. Let's go now to Alayna, who is in West Palm Beach.

Alayna, what are you hearing from the White House about any potential deals, the messaging around that, any new movement in that area?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, I think it's very clear from my conversations with multiple Trump administration officials and senior White House officials that they recognize they need to announce a deal soon. I think that's part of why you've heard the president kind of parade many of his top economic advisers, like the Treasury secretary and the Commerce secretary and others this week out there to publicly say that a deal was close.

We heard Bessent and others mention potentially India would be -- struck a deal with them as early as last week or this upcoming week. But they've also talked a lot about trying to shore up deals first with allies, the United States' allies in Asia, also talking about Japan and South Korea. But what is clear is, one, of course, we ended this week without a trade deal, particularly a week when the president was trying to highlight his first 100 days in office. Many people thought a deal might be announced then.

But what's clear is behind the scenes there is a lot of pressure building on them to do this, particularly as a lot of the economic turmoil laid out by what Marc was just talking about with the tariffs on China specifically are really concerning Americans.

Now, I do know that a ton of different representatives from the countries I mentioned have been meeting with the Treasury secretary, with USTR, the trade representative, to work on the language of these deals and deals are expected to be announced soon. But again, a lot of the media and others have been completely left in the dark about what the actual language would look like and how soon we can actually expect them.

But there is definitely this growing anxiety and kind of motivation for them to want to announce at least one deal as soon as possible because to them, they recognize they have a lot of deals they still need to make. But they do think at least announcing one kind of gives that good news and optimism to the American people to keep them -- to continue having them be patient and kind of using the language that the president has used.

DEAN: And in the meantime, Marc, President Xi is set to meet with Vladimir Putin this week in Moscow as those two leaders deepen their relationship. What are China's goals from that friendship while the U.S. is obviously changing so many things about how it interacts with the world?

STEWART: And this meeting between Vladimir Putin and President Xi certainly is not a surprise.

[19:05:03]

And it's been officially announced by the Kremlin, still waiting for confirmation from the Chinese side. But these two leaders have enjoyed what's been described as this no limits friendship between the two of them. In fact, it was just last year, around this exact time, that we saw Vladimir Putin here in China giving a hug, the two men exchanged a hug before they parted ways. So they have this very long friendship.

Part of China's bigger goal of trying to establish itself as the leader of a new world order at a time when there is so much political turbulence, China is again going to try to establish itself as this stable force. In fact, if we look at the relationship between the two nations, it's not just a shared political philosophy. It's one of economics. We've seen China buy a lot of energy from Russia over the years.

So this is a way for China to continue its messaging that there are other worldviews besides that of the West, and that from the United States. We've seen Xi Jinping take to the road lately. He just recently went on a trip to, among other places, Malaysia and Vietnam to try to establish China as a strong trade partner. So this is part of this ongoing narrative that China also is a force in the world -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. And, Alayna, for the White House, for President Trump, how does he see this relationship between those two leaders, Putin and Xi?

TREENE: Well, look, it's no secret that both of those countries, China and Russia, are adversaries to United States. But, of course, the president has not always made that very clear in the rhetoric that he has used to describe them, often trying to say that he has great relationships with both President Xi and President Putin, talking about how they are strongmen, kind of using, you know, favorable language in describing them.

We saw this particularly throughout his time on the campaign trail, but we've heard it as well throughout his time in the White House. But I think what's clear is that the president recognizes what they are doing here in some ways. I mean, we have heard kind of the tone that the president used, particularly when talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin change in recent weeks. It seems like he's starting to recognize that perhaps he doesn't want a deal, for example, as it relates to trying to end the wars between Russia and Ukraine.

But with Xi, he still is continuing to say that he thinks that he's a smart man and someone that will end up making a deal with him. And just to bring it back to these tariffs, I mean, what the president is really doing here is trying to see who will blink first. I know from my conversations with people at the White House that he has directed his team not to reach out first. He really wants President Xi to be the one to pick up the phone and call him.

And he said he believes they will be forced to do that at some point because the tariffs on China are so high at 145 percent. So right now it is almost a waiting game. But as he's seeing these two leaders meet, I think it's one thing that of course will continue to cause some concern among people in the Trump administration about what they could be plotting, you know, so to speak. But again, as Marc laid out, this isn't exactly surprising.

They are two leaders that have a long standing relationship. Many people working in the Trump administration recognize that this is not a surprising thing for them to do.

DEAN: And a slight topic change here. But Alayna, we're just getting this. A few moments ago, President Trump appeared to express a desire to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz. What are you hearing about that?

TREENE: Right. Yes, this just came in moments ago, Jessica. It was kind of a surprising Truth post, as he's leaving Florida, where I am now, and heading back to the White House. But I want to read you just some of what he said. He said, quote, "Rebuild and open Alcatraz. For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent and repeat offenders." He went on to say, when we were a more serious nation in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That's the way it's supposed to be.

So this is really the first time, Jessica, we've heard the president talk about wanting to reopen Alcatraz. But I'd remind you, this is similar to what he kind of wanted to do with Guantanamo Bay and use it to house what he argues and alleges are criminal, undocumented migrants in the country. We've already seen DHS and others go to Guantanamo Bay to help facilitate that. And so this almost seems like it's keeping in line with that.

We've heard this president be very focused on wanting his administration and the different agencies underneath him to crack down on crime and to go and use these different facilities that have not been used for several years now. And so this is a major change from policy, of course, that the United States has had for a long time. The first we are learning of him say this something well obviously have to continue looking into.

DEAN: All right, Alayna Treene and Marc Stewart, our thanks to both of you tonight. We appreciate it.

Also this evening, President Trump says he does not know if he has to uphold the constitutional rights to due process as he carries out a sweeping immigration crackdown. In a new interview, Trump said he would abide by Supreme Court rulings. But when asked directly if it's his duty to uphold the Constitution, this is what the president said.

[19:10:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC HOST, "MEET THE PRESS": Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.

WELKER: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?

TRUMP: I don't know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining us now, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Good evening to you, Ron. What do you think of the president's answer there?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a classic Trumpian formulation in which he left open the door to something truly outrageous by not ruling it out and then feigning ignorance along the way. But the argument he's making, we've heard more explicitly from the Vice President JD Vance, from Stephen Miller, who is kind of the architect of the immigration agenda.

And basically it says, if we have to give everybody due process, all undocumented immigrants' due process, we can't reach our goals of truly achieving a mass deportation. The problem they have is that the Supreme Court has also been explicit already. You know, in that early April ruling, the Supreme Court did not rule ultimately on whether or not Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act at all to try to remove, you know, undocumented people.

But it did say that even if he can, he has to provide everyone a hearing and an opportunity to kind of challenge their removal. And now we have a Trump appointed judge saying he can't use the law at all. So unless, you know, for all of the kind of waltzing around there, unless Trump is going to explicitly defy the Supreme Court, which he said even in that answer, he's not going to do, this is not a complicated question at this point.

The court has said that, in fact, he does have to provide due process. And we will see, you know, where it goes from here.

DEAN: Also in that interview, he said he's not looking to run for another four years in the White House, where he's kind of hedged on that before. This is what he's saying now. We'll listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I will say this, so many people want me to do it. I have never had requests so strong as that. But it's something that, to the best of my knowledge, you're not allowed to do. I don't know if that's constitutional that they're not allowing you to do it or anything else, but there are many people selling the 2028 hat. But this is not something I'm looking to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, Ron Trump previously said he wasn't joking about potentially seeking a third term. Now we have this change of tune where he is a little -- he's more direct saying, this is not something I'm looking to do. What do you think that's about?

BROWNSTEIN: Again, again, kind of textbook Trump formulations in two respects. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, I'm not allowed to do it. You know, it might be constitutional. Of course it's constitutional. It's in, you know, it's in the Constitution that he can't do it. But also, I think revealing here is that Trump often delivers different messages to media outlets that he recognizes are reaching a mainstream audience than he delivers to outlets and rallies and so forth, where he is speaking to his base.

Jessica, I guarantee you, this is not the last time he will dangle the third term one way or the other, and there will be moments over the next few years when talking to an audience that he recognizes as more of his hardcore supporters, he is going to put a different emphasis, a different spin on the ball than he did today. He often does this where, when talking to the mainstream, he kind of reins in the more extreme ideas, and then he lets it rip when he feels that he's, you know, kind of under the dome, in the bubble, talking to his base.

DEAN: More to come on this. Ron Brownstein, good to see you. Thanks so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

DEAN: Brazilian authorities say a Lady Gaga concert that drew a record breaking crowd of two million people was also the target of a bombing plot. How they uncovered the plan and caught those suspects. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:18:58]

DEAN: Developing in Brazil, police say they foiled a bomb plot targeting Lady Gaga's free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. Two people now in custody. More than two million people showed up for that concert last night, and officials say the pair of suspects tried to recruit people to carry out coordinated attacks. They wanted to target LGBTQ Plus people attending the show.

CNN correspondent Julia Vargas Jones is joining us now.

Julia, what more are you learning? I know there are some very chilling details that police are releasing.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some disturbing details, Jessica. One of them is that one of the suspects claimed that Lady Gaga had a Satanist religious inclination, and that as such, he would respond in the same way by carrying out a Satanist ritual killing of a child or a baby in a live stream during her show. It was the U.S. consulate, actually, who alerted Brazilian authorities about this man's posts on social media, and he is now being charged with terrorism and inducing crime.

Now that is separate from the 13 other search and seizure warrants that were carried out yesterday.

[19:20:03]

They were targeting an extremist group that was spreading hate speech, especially targeting the LGBTQ Plus community. They were communicating on Discord, a popular online forum, and they were posing as little monsters, as Lady Gaga fans, recruiting participants including underage people, with the goal to orchestrate these improvised explosive attacks and Molotov cocktails at the concert. Kind of like a challenge, an online challenge to achieve notoriety.

Of those two people who were arrested, one of them is considered by police to be the leader of this group. He was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm. And a teenager was also arrested for possession of child pornography. Police said that they carried out this operation with discretion. They did not want to cause panic. They didn't say anything before the concert, but they also didn't mention anything to Lady Gaga's team.

A spokesperson for Lady Gaga told CNN that they learned about this alleged threat via media reports this morning. Quote, "Prior to and during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any potential risk. Her team worked closely with law enforcement throughout the planning and execution of the concert, and all parties were confident in the safety measures that were in place."

Now, I also spoke with one concert goer about how he felt today, learning that they were all potentially targeted by a terror plot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANI MORERA TRETIN, ATTENDED CONCERT: To know that there was a group actively targeting us and the LGBTQ Plus community definitely put a bitter taste in my mouth. I mean, I am glad that they didn't tell people about what was going on, and they did it with discretion because I believe that could have caused a major panic and would have caused many people not to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And of course, Lady Gaga has amassed, Jessica, a huge following in the LGBTQ Plus community. She's been a staunch advocate for that community for years, and she doesn't seem to have let this potential terror plot put a stain on what was a very successful show. She posted today, thanking her fans for going there, calling them, quote, "so vibrant and special," and thanking them for sharing this historical moment with her.

DEAN: All right, Julia Vargas Jones, thank you for that.

And CNN's senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe joins us now to talk a little bit more about this.

Thanks for being here. This was a really high profile event. Two million people on the beach there. What's your assessment of how authorities handled this incident?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes. So let's think first, Jessica, about how hard it is to secure a special event like this, over two million people on a beach, free concert, which simply indicates that, like, access to the event was not controlled in the way it would normally be at a concert where people have to present tickets. So there's really no realistic way of screening everyone that goes into that crowd.

So you have a very potentially volatile situation on your hands. That is why it's so important for law enforcement trying to protect these large outdoor events, to engage in what certainly happened here which is intelligence collection before the event on social media, looking for exactly what they found here, the sorts of conversations between people and specific forums, maybe on the dark Web and places like Discord, 4chan, 8chan, all those other platforms where we know that extremists go to interact with each other, to plan violent acts, sometimes to recruit others to those sorts of plans.

So it's, yes, really a heads up, kind of lean forward approach by the authorities down there to collect information about this plot beforehand so that they could take care of it before the concert.

DEAN: Yes. Do you think it's unusual that the star, in this case, Lady Gaga, her team, the concert organizers, would not know about any of this kind of unfolding until after it was all handled?

MCCABE: Well, you know, it's not -- it's not how we would do it here. It's certainly not how the FBI would do it. You know, a good counter example, I guess, would be the issue with Taylor Swift's concerts in Austria last year, which were also similarly targeted by people who wanted to stage a violent attack. They coordinated with her team very closely. They actually, I think, canceled one of those shows in advance.

So the team in Brazil must have been very, very confident in their ability to completely mitigate this threat before the show, to execute those search warrants and arrest warrants, take people into custody. They must have been very confident that they had the entirety of this network identified and located.

[19:25:03]

That's a pretty bold and some would say risky move. It appears to have worked out for them here. So I guess a little bit of good luck was in store.

DEAN: Yes. I mean, thank God nobody was injured or hurt. But you did mention the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna last year. That one was an ISIS inspired plot. And to your point, they did cancel a concert and they did work in coordination with her.

But do you expect that we'll -- I mean, obviously any big event is hard to secure, as you noted, for all the reasons you noted. But do you expect that we'll continue to see this type of thing? It's always clearly a challenge to make sure you're protecting everyone.

MCCABE: No question. This is not the last time we'll have this conversation. You know, these events are just such ripe targets for people who want to cause this kind of violence or mischief, whether they are terrorists and ideologically driven extremists or they're just sadistic people on the Internet, which, you know, are trying to pull a group together just to see if they can pull this off to gain the notoriety that will come from it.

These events are intrinsically tough to secure. They attract massive crowds that you have a very hard time controlling what people can bring into or near the event. And so they are a -- what we call a soft target. So they will remain a top kind of destination, kind of target for extremist groups as long as we keep convening in this way, which I hope that we do. We just need to get better and better and better about collecting intelligence and using it to protect people.

DEAN: Yes, making sure everyone stays safe.

Andrew McCabe, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

MCCABE: Thank you.

DEAN: In just a few days, dozens of Catholic cardinals will lock themselves away within the Vatican and decide on the future of the church as they pick a successor for Pope Francis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:31:01]

DEAN: The official end to the mourning period for Pope Francis was marked with a final mass at the Vatican today.

Cardinals from around the world gathered in Saint Peter's Basilica for the ceremony. It is among the last remaining preparations before the Papal Conclave begins Wednesday. We know the chimney has been installed on top of the Sistine Chapel and wooden tables, where the Cardinals will sit and cast their votes have now been moved into position.

Candida Moss, a Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., is joining us now. Thanks so much for being here.

As we prepare for a big week at the Vatican, there is a lot of preparation we've seen publicly, of course, that we just kind of went through. There's also the preparation. What can you tell us about what's going on behind-the-scenes as they prepare to begin the Conclave this week?

CANDIDA MOSS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM U.K., CADBURY PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY: Thanks for having me. Well, the truth of the matter is that discussions about the next pope have already started. Cardinals were meeting at a general congregation last week and they were delivering speeches and they were having meals together. And traditionally, it is there at sort of meals shared in the Taverna of Rome that people have very direct conversations about who they think the next pope should be.

The candidates are not campaigning themselves, but they have proxies out there looking to kind of gather votes on their behalf.

DEAN: And we know Cardinal Porras from Venezuela suggested that the Conclave could be over in two days. What do you make of that comment? Do you think that's a sign there could be some emerging consensus at this stage?

MOSS: I think that's exactly right. The fact that this kind of information is leaking out to the media at this stage suggests that at least some very clear frontrunners. If not some actual consensus is building around some candidates. It's really important for the Catholic Church that Conclave not take too long.

In theological terms, it is governed by the Holy Spirit and the idea that the Holy Spirit can't make his mind up is quite problematic. So, they want to look unified, and they want a short Conclave, which is exactly why they're already talking.

DEAN: That's so fascinating. Now, obviously, any potential candidate isn't going to go out and give interviews or maybe even campaign for themselves. Their campaigns are being run by proxies, their supporters, again, behind-the-scenes.

I'm thinking about the film "Conclave" because that does happen in that film and you see it play out. But how realistic is that? Are those conversations happening amongst these different Cardinals where they're kind of, you know, kind of doing a little campaign for maybe the people that they support.

MOSS: Yes, it is fascinating, and "Conclave" does give us a good glimpse into how things work. Yes, people have proxies out there having conversations with others, trying to gather up votes for their favored candidates. A lot of this is done along linguistic lines and national lines, you know, Spanish speakers together, Italian speakers together, and there are also sort of regional allegiances.

So, African Cardinals are more united than Cardinals from any other region, and we should expect them to form something of a voting bloc. But in order to be elected, the next pope is going to need to gather votes from all over the world. That's just how a Conclave is made up now.

And so, were going to see some sort of politicking behind the scenes. We won't see it but, of course, Catholic Cardinals are already involved and they are watching the media quite closely to see what the scuttlebutt is about various candidates.

DEAN: It will be a fascinating week. Candida Moss, thank you so much for taking us behind the scenes a little bit, we appreciate it.

MOSS: Thanks for having me.

DEAN: The Justice Department is getting rid of a rule that protected journalists during leak investigations. Potential impact on the news. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:39:26]

DEAN: All right, CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter is joining us now to talk about a number of things.

But, Brian, I want to start with something that were just getting. It's a Truth Social post from the President. He's just touching down at Joint Base Andrews after being in Florida for the weekend and he's saying that he wants to authorize the Department Of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative to begin the process of instituting a 100 percent tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands.

What is this about? I have a couple questions, but just what's your first reaction to that?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: It's unclear how this would be enforced, but it's really interesting on two levels.

Number one, there's something known as runaway production in Hollywood. This started, actually literally in Hollywood when filmmakers would go in other parts of California to make their movies.

Now, runaway production is a global phenomenon. Filmmakers go to Canada, to Great Britain, to other countries to make their movies because there are tax incentives and there are other reasons why it's more cost effective.

So, I think Trump is responding to that phenomenon, which is very real and a big problem for U.S. entertainment companies. I think he is also reacting to China, because in recent weeks, China has said that its going to release fewer U.S. films in Chinese theaters. That was one way for China to retaliate against Trump's tariffs.

So, Trump here, using the American movie industry, trying to say films should be made here in the U.S. and trying to punish filmmakers who are making films outside the U.S.

[19:40:49]

DEAN: Yes, it's interesting because you have to think again, we're just trying to kind of sort through this, that there's a lot of film studios out there right now, or producers, directors that are scrambling, going, oh, we're supposed to -- we're set to film wherever -- Canada, like you said or maybe if it's, you know, you think about "Harry Potter" shot in Great Britain.

What is it that -- would it affect them as well? I mean, those are American made movies by American studios, but they're shot somewhere else.

STELTER: Right, that's partly what's so interesting about Hollywood. Hollywood is a foreign export, you know, and every other country wants a version of it, you know. There's so much envy of the American movie industry, even as the American movie industry is increasingly multinational and happening all around the world.

So, Trump is saying the actual production should be in the U.S. How this would be implemented is unclear and I think, you know, it does raise questions about productions that are happening right now, for example.

There have been talks, though, in recent months about tax incentives, other ways to encourage U.S. production. What he's trying to do here is punish the outside the U.S. production as a way to incentivize production at home in the U.S.

DEAN: Yes, and there is that question as you're talking about it, like, how do you actually institute these tariffs? Who pays the tariff, how it all works? I guess we're going to find out.

STELTER: Right.

DEAN: All right, so --

STELTER: Always those questions and always those follow ups, yes.

DEAN: Yes, always in this day and age. I do, before we let you go, want to get to you about the Justice Department kind of quietly reinstating this rule that allows federal investigators to secretly go after journalists' records in any sort of leak investigation, and there were protections that were put into place for journalists by the Attorney General Merrick Garland, under President Biden. So, what do you make of these changes that they're instituting?

STELTER: I thought this was the most important story that happened in the past few days under the radar. You know, Trump is out there loudly talking about movie production, talking about PBS and NPR. But this decision by the Justice Department could have implications that are quite widespread. You know, many journalists rely on anonymous sources to provide leaks, to provide information, including from within inside the federal government.

The Trump Department and the Justice Department in Trump's first term tried to crack down and tried to go after the records of reporters, including at CNN, in order to find out who was leaking. The Biden era Justice Department, put in rules and protections to make sure that would happen a lot less often. The rules weren't perfect. The Biden's DOJ implemented, but they were an attempt to provide some protections for journalists.

The Trump DOJ now rolling those back and making it easier for prosecutors to secretly obtain reporters' notes, their records, maybe their e-mails or phone logs. That is going to have a chilling effect on investigative journalism. And ultimately, Jess, we don't know what we don't know. If sources are too afraid to come forward, if they're too afraid of leak investigations, if reporters are worried about pursuing those sources, then information doesn't get out into the public domain.

So, this is one of those under the radar moves by the DOJ that we should keep an eye on, that everyone should be aware of. It's one of those moves that could have a chilling effect going forward.

DEAN: A real effect, absolutely. All right, Brian Stelter, as always, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

STELTER: Thanks.

DEAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:53]

DEAN: Turning now to an environmental crisis in Florida, pollutants in the Indian River Lagoon are killing the state's manatees at an alarming rate. CNN's Randi Kaye takes us inside the fight to save the beloved marine mammals.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We're heading out on Florida's Indian River Lagoon, which stretches from Palm Beach County to Daytona Beach. The lagoon is where Florida manatees come for the warm water. But in recent years, the northern end of the lagoon has been a death trap for them.

PETER BARILE, MARINE BIOLOGIST: All these homes along the lagoon that are on septic tanks are slowly leaking. Literally tons of nitrogen and phosphorus into the system.

KAYE (voice over): Marine Biologist, Peter Barile has studied manatees for decades. He says those pollutants are being released by septic tanks and water treatment facilities along the lagoon and are fueling algae growth in the water, which is causing the manatees main food source, seagrass, to die.

BARILE: So this algae is reducing light down to the seagrasses, essentially smothering them and killing them.

KAYE (voice over): He says manatees need to eat nearly 100 pounds of vegetation a day. Between December 2020 and April 2022, more than 1,200 manatees died of starvation, most of them here in the northern part of the Indian River Lagoon.

KAYE (on camera): Just a couple of decades ago, the water in this Indian River Lagoon was crystal clear. You could easily see down to the bottom. Now, it's dark and murky and polluted with chemicals and algae.

[19:50:17]

KAYE (voice over): With their seagrass gone, the manatees had little choice but to eat the algae that killed it, which is toxic for them. Their normally round bodies became flat as they became more and more emaciated.

Katrina Shadix is the executive director of Bear Warriors United, which sued Florida's Department of Environmental Protection in 2022 to help protect the Manatees.

KATRINA SHADIX, DIRECTOR OF BEAR WARRIORS UNITED: They suffered immensely and for a very long time. When a manatee starves to death, it's an extremely painful process and basically their insides melt and turn to liquid.

KAYE (voice over): These photos from Bear Warriors United show how desperate some of the Manatees were attempting to pull themselves out of the water to eat leaves off dry land, or grass along the water's edge. And this video shows manatee carcasses being taken to a landfill for necropsies and disposal.

On this beach in the lagoon, Katrina says she found many manatee carcasses. She showed us some of their bones that still remain and shared this picture with us of a Manatee skull.

SHADIX: There was a carcass of a mom, and the skeleton had started to show. And there was a baby skeleton inside of her body. So, she died pregnant. And the bones of the baby were fitted perfectly inside the bones of the mother.

KAYE (voice over): Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in favor of Bear Warriors United and against the state, finding Florida's Department of Environmental Protection was, "in violation of the Endangered Species Act."

BARILE: There was lax leadership from the State of Florida over decades that allowed this problem to get worse and worse.

KAYE (voice over): The judge in the case ruled that there is a definitive causal link between Florida's Department of Environmental Protection wastewater regulations and the ongoing risk to manatees.

Based in part on Peter Barile's testimony, the judge found it will take at least a decade for this part of the lagoon to start seeing recovery.

BARILE: The State of Florida has admitted that it will be 12 to 15 years before seagrasses start to recover.

KAYE (voice over): We reached out to both the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but neither provided a response to our questions.

KAYE (on camera): Are you hopeful the manatee population will come back here?

SHADIX: I am hopeful now. I wasn't at first. I was convinced that this home herd was going to go extinct, and that the rest of the state manatees would follow. But now that we won this lawsuit, we think we have a really good chance of working with the state to make sure the manatees don't go extinct on our watch.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Randi Kaye, thanks for that reporting. And just ahead, CNN travels deep inside the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, where Elon Musk's Starlink company is bringing isolated communities online for the very first time.

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DEAN: A small area along the Texas coast that's home to Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to be the newest town in the state. Voters this weekend supported a measure to become a municipality and call it Starbase. For the past decade, SpaceX has used the area to develop its rockets and flight system designed to eventually take people to Mars.

Starbase has fewer than 300 voters, and the vast majority of them are SpaceX employees.

Once the vote is certified, a judge will sign off on it and make it official.

Tonight on the whole story, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and his team journey deep into Brazil's Amazon jungle. And there, they visited some of the most remote villages in the world. They witnessed what happens when these communities access the internet for the very first time. Here's a preview of the "Wired Rainforest."

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, this was a weeks' long journey into a part of the world that few of us are lucky to really see, and you get to some of these isolated indigenous communities, and you really feel how detached they are. The sort of massive silence that yawns between you and this huge canopy to the rest of the world.

But then Starlink arrives, bang -- and they go from that to an hour later, being connected to every bit of information the internet can possibly hold. And the transformation was startling, really, for a seeing a week, how people were just gaggling around one particular device on a Chinese version of TikTok called Kawaii consumed by it. There's benefits to health care, better information, bad parts too where the loggers, the miners, the illegal fishermen there. There are better ways of communicating to evade the authorities as they plunder parts of that rainforest.

But I think there's also two things, really that were most acute. It was a stark reminder of how this technology has come into our lives slowly over decades and we have kind of got accustomed to how utterly all-consuming this is to almost everything you do all day long.

You could see that in real perspective, in the change in these indigenous communities, and also too, these communities, detached as they are, have had to create rules for this new technology fast.

In weeks and months, simply realizing that the children need to be policed when they're on the internet. They need to switch these things off or destroy everything else in their lives. And it seems like in cities, you and I don't really even know that yet. But it was clear to them very early on -- Jessica.

DEAN: That is fascinating. Nick, thank you so much. An all new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper airs next only on CNN.

Thanks so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. We're going to see you right back here next weekend. Have a great night.

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