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Trump Promises To Double Tariffs On Steel And Aluminum; Hamas Calls For End To War, Responds To U.S. Ceasefire Plan; Supreme Court Allows Trump To Suspend Deportation Protection For Some Immigrants; Dems Rally In South Carolina As Party Looks To Rebuild Itself; How Pilots Train To Handle Air Traffic Control Failures; Taylor Swift Now Owns Her Entire Music Catalog. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired May 31, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: And thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The NEWSROOM continues with Jessica Dean right now.

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

President Donald Trump is threatening big tariffs again. And his latest target now is steel. Speaking to U.S. steelworkers at a factory outside Pittsburgh, Trump promised to double tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50 percent, five, zero, starting on June 4th. He argues that the move will protect the industry and American jobs, but it risks more trade hostilities. The European Union quickly shooting back that it will be -- it's willing to impose countermeasures, saying Trump's latest threat, quote, "adds further uncertainty to the global economy and increases costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic."

CNN's senior White House reporter Betsy Klein is joining us now.

Betsy, what more can you tell us about what the president is saying on these tariffs?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE SENIOR CORRESPONDENT AND WRITER: Well, certainly injecting more uncertainty into the global economy President Trump unveiling plans to double tariffs on foreign made steel coming into the U.S. And while this could be good for the American steel business, it could raise prices on American manufacturing and construction industries. It also has the potential to raise the price of cars made here.

Now, the president made this announcement right after markets closed on Friday. So we haven't yet seen how markets are reacting to this. But he made the announcement as he was visiting a U.S. steel plant outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Of course, he was there to celebrate a deal he says has been struck between Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. That is something that he says is not quite finalized yet, but he claims that the U.S. would still have control over this American company.

Now, in a surprise announcement Friday, the president saying that he was going to raise tariffs on steel to from 25 percent to 50, five- zero, percent, saying that it was going to bolster domestic steel manufacturing. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to be imposing a 25 percent increase. We're going to bring it from 25 percent to 50 percent. The tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to be able to steal your industry. It's at 25 percent. They can sort of get over that fence. At 50 percent they can no longer get over the fence.

I said to the group, would you rather have a 40 percent increase? Because I was thinking about 40 when I came. I said, would you rather have a 40 percent or a 50 percent? They said, we'll take 50. I said I had a feeling you were going to say that. So congratulations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KLEIN: The president unveiling his decision-making there. But the European Union and the United Kingdom both making clear that countermeasures are on the table when these go into effect on Wednesday -- Jessica.

DEAN: And Betsy, what's changed since we last heard from President Trump on his trade talks with the E.U. last week?

KLEIN: Well, a lot since last week. If you were just watching your show this last weekend and tuned in today, you'd be subject to a lot of whiplash. So just to recap, last Friday, the president reignited that trade war with the European Union, saying they weren't moving fast enough to establish a trade deal with the U.S. And by Tuesday, he announced that talks were back on and they had set up some meetings.

But then on Wednesday, a federal court ruled blocking the president's global tariffs. That includes those tariffs he announced on so-called liberation day, the 10 percent universal tariffs, as well as tariffs aimed at combating the spread of fentanyl. And then later in the day on Wednesday, an appeals court said that the tariffs could stay in place while this court challenge plays out. So of course, a lot of uncertainty there. The administration prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Betsy Klein at the White House with the latest reporting. Thank you very much.

And joining us now, Josh Lipsky. He's the chair of International Economics and the senior director for the Geoeconomic Center at the Atlantic Council.

Josh, nice to see you on this Saturday afternoon. It has been nearly four months of these trade tactics from the president. How do you think that world leaders are seeing these new tariff threats?

JOSH LIPSKY, ECONOMIST, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Well, it's good to see you, Jessica. And they're seeing it differently today than they did before because of what happened in the court decision.

[16:05:01]

That was a major setback for this administration. A unanimous decision against what was the heart of his tariff strategy, the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Now they have more tools in the toolkit. They're Section 301 and Section 232, and Section 122. So there's more they can go to. But other world leaders are suddenly saying to themselves, well, hold on a second. How hard do I have to negotiate with this administration if the Supreme Court may, and we don't know, but may eventually overrule some of their tariff authorities?

And that's why in the weeks to come, I think you're going to see a slow walking of negotiations from countries like India and Japan and even the E.U., as you were just discussing who might have been more eager to make a deal when the liberation day tariffs were going to expire in July. And they might be thinking differently this week after the court ruling.

DEAN: Yes, you can't help but think about time in all of this. And you would think that some of these other countries think that they can kind of potentially, you know, wait this out, use time to their benefit if this stays in the courts or to your point, depending on what the courts rule, knowing that President Trump has a set amount of time in office.

LIPSKY: That's exactly right. They're playing for time now. And that was different. There was urgency before July 9th when the reciprocal pause was supposed to expire, was the deadline everyone was working off of. No one feels that kind of urgency at the moment. On the other hand, you see Trump ratcheting up other parts of tariffs, like the steel tariffs going to 50. Now that puts pressure, especially on the E.U., Brazil, Mexico, Canada. You saw Canada respond today.

So you see so much volatility and uncertainty happening. And that's what's going to continue. And I think the takeaway message here, if anyone thought the trade wars were ending, they got a different signal this week. We are just beginning. And it's a new front in the trade wars. A legal front was opened this week.

DEAN: And as the president is lashing out at China on Truth Social, he was saying, in his words, no more Mr. Nice Guy, we also have his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent taking what you would call a more diplomatic approach. This is what he told FOX News last night. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: I would say that they are a bit stalled. I believe that we will be having more talks with them in the next few weeks, and I believe we may at some point have a call between the president and party chair Xi.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DEAN: So you have that measured kind of response from the Treasury secretary. You have President Trump saying no more Mr. Nice Guy. Is this kind of a good cop, bad cop type of diplomacy? What are -- what's going on here?

LIPSKY: Well, I think this was all fully predictable. When we came out of Switzerland, everyone thought we were on some sort of de-escalatory path with the U.S. and China, but nothing was actually fully agreed to in Switzerland. This got a little misinterpreted. And this happens a lot in trade negotiations. You have a good meeting. Everyone feels good. The tariffs got lowered temporarily and then everyone went back home and they didn't feel as good about the deal as they felt when they were face-to-face negotiating in Switzerland.

And so from the Chinese side, they haven't lived up to the U.S. expectations of reopening some of these shipments of rare earth materials. This is critical. We had a Ford factory in the U.S. have to shut down temporarily this week because they couldn't get access to rare earths. On the other side, the U.S. was slapping export controls on semiconductors, so both sides walked out of Switzerland and then the tensions got raised.

And now we're in this situation where we could go higher than the 30 percent that they agreed to temporarily. And this is the roller coaster ride of tariffs we're on. And we're not out of the woods yet. Just as we head into this important season in the summer where we had weaker Q1 GDP growth, we're looking for better Q2 GDP growth. There are a lot of risks materializing. And I think tomorrow when Chinese markets open and Asian markets open, you're going to see a significant backlash from China based on what the president said.

That's how they always do it. Sunday night our time, Monday morning their time. So watch out for that.

DEAN: Yes. OK. So to that point the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, is warning China will likely not bow down to the president's demands and says America has a bigger problem. This is what Jamie Dimon is saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE DIMON, JPMORGAN CHASE CEO: We have problems and we've got to deal with them. And then the biggest one underlying both that is the enemy within. I'm not as worried about China. China is a potential adversary. They're doing a lot of things well. They have a lot of problems. What I really worry about is us. Can we get our own act together, our own values, our own capability, our own management?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Josh, do you think he has a valid point there?

LIPSKY: I fully agree. Nothing can defeat the United States except what we do to ourselves. The strongest economy in the world, rule of law. Every country wants to invest here. The dollar is the global reserve currency, and this all has an impact, the volatility of the tariffs, the uncertainty, what it does to our business, what it does to the global economy. But it also has an immediate impact on the bond market. And Jamie Dimon flagged that in his remarks over the past few days as well because the Trump administration was banking on tariff revenues coming in to pay for some of the budget and tax cuts that are coming, right?

[16:10:09]

So if they don't get that, if they have their authority undercut, the bond markets are going to react in the next couple of weeks and say, hold on a second. The deficits even worse than we thought. All of this is interconnected. We're in a fragile moment right now for the U.S. economy and for the global economy.

DEAN: And, you know, I think, too, because we have been talking about this now for several months, really since the president took office, you know, people are, as you mentioned, we're now getting into the summer season. People are focused on summer, and yet this is still unresolved. It hasn't -- the whole situation has not resolved itself by any means. And there's still a tremendous amount of uncertainty.

Do you think that Americans are aware of that, or will this kind of continue if we start to see more and more fallout from this to kind of potentially just hit people like a tsunami, you know, once they start getting, you know, the prices go up or they have emptier shelves, et cetera, et cetera?

LIPSKY: Right. I think most Americans actually haven't experienced the impacts of the trade war yet. And you can see this. We only really have April data and a little bit of the May data. It hasn't significantly shifted, but that's only a few weeks after liberation day. When we start getting the rest of the May data and the June data and getting now into summer, I think that's when Americans are really going to start to feel it with higher prices.

And I do think a lot of people expected resolution on the trade wars coming in July, when we had the end of these reciprocal tariffs and what everyone is realizing, Americans, people around the world, the markets is, oh, no, we're in for the long haul here on the trade war. He means it on tariffs. He is not backing down. And that means more volatility, more uncertainty and higher costs ultimately. And we're only at the beginning of this, not the end.

DEAN: And I do want to ask you too about these new tariffs on steel that we were talking about with Betsy Klein. The president has argued this will help secure the steel industry in the United States, saying that no one is going to get around that. Do you think that's correct?

LIPSKY: Well, 50 percent is a painful tariff, and you're going to feel that in cars and planes. So many inputs of steel across the country. And I think what's often misunderstood here is that while this may help protect some steel jobs in the U.S. because so many other jobs rely on steel inputs, it can cost jobs. And what we saw the first time around in Trump, the first administration, when he had steel tariffs at a much lower rate, was we actually had a net loss of jobs in this country because of them, not a net gain. A few increase in the steel sector, but other sectors had to cut jobs.

And if this holds at 50 percent, and I do think he's serious right now, then that is really going to be costly on top of everything else that's going on. So that is one of the most significant tariffs we've seen. And he has full legal authority to do it unlike some of the other tariffs and court rulings. There's no question about the steel tariffs at this point.

DEAN: Yes. And that's an important distinction as well.

Josh Lipsky, thanks so much. We really appreciate it.

LIPSKY: Thanks.

DEAN: Still to come this hour, dozens of aid trucks are ransacked in Gaza as the hunger crisis there grows and negotiations for a ceasefire face a setback. Plus, the Supreme Court sides with President Trump saying he can suspend deportation protections for a half million migrants. And later, she was ready for it. Taylor Swift buys the masters to several of her early albums. We'll explain why she did this and what it means for Taylor's version.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:07]

DEAN: New tonight, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff is calling Hamas's response to the latest U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, quote, "totally unacceptable." Hamas is in its response is -- in its response is calling for a permanent end to the war, which isn't guaranteed in the U.S. proposal.

This war in Rafah in southern Gaza -- this was in Rafah in Southern Gaza earlier today. And we're seeing more chaotic scenes as people try to secure desperately needed basic necessities.

Here's CNN's Salma Abdelaziz with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is not a no, but it is not a yes. Hamas has responded to a U.S. ceasefire proposal that was issued earlier this week. Hamas said in its response that it was ready to release 10 living hostages and 18 other deceased hostages in exchange for a certain number of Palestinian prisoners.

Now, that does match with the draft proposal, but the group also outlined their reservations with this ceasefire proposal and again repeated demands they've made time and time again. Hamas says it wants to have a permanent ceasefire. It wants to see a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, and it wants guaranteed flow of humanitarian aid to the people in the enclave.

Now the ceasefire contains no intrinsic guarantee of a permanent end to the war, and it holds no assurances that the ceasefire will be extended as long as these negotiations continue. One Israeli official told CNN that they see this response from Hamas as a rejection of the Trump administration's proposed ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is warning that the enclave is on the brink of famine. But this is what an aid distribution looks like in Gaza.

[16:20:00]

Just take a look at the chaos as the hungry and desperate descend on an aid site where there appears to be very little organization, as you can see there, and more images, these are also from Saturday, show people fighting for a bag of flour. At another site gunfire was heard. Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling through Gaza were looted. That's according to the World Food Programme, which says that most of the food was taken by hungry people trying to feed their families.

One U.N. officials says it is no shock that these images are playing out in Gaza after a nearly 11 week blockade has deprived families there of the very basics for survival.

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: And joining us now is CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger.

David, thanks so much for being here with us. I want to go back to Steve Witkoff's response to the Hamas response, which he called totally unacceptable. What do you make of that? Where do negotiations go from here?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Mr. Witkoff is right in the middle of the hardest problems in the Middle East because on the same day he's dealing with the Hamas proposal, and what may or may not turn out to be a breakthrough with Iran. On Hamas first, the proposal the U.S. had put out was basically for half of the living hostages to be released and a 60-day ceasefire.

And Hamas obviously has come back with much smaller numbers in a demand for a permanent ceasefire. And you can see why Hamas wants that. But at this point, they don't have a lot of negotiating capability. A lot of their leadership has been killed, almost most of it. The Israeli military has now confirmed what Prime Minister Netanyahu said the other day that Mohammed Sinwar, the younger brother of the Hamas leader who had been killed last year, was also killed in a strike earlier in the month.

So at this point, the administration is trying to balance a desire to get this done and a recognition that the starvation that you saw taking place there and just the trickle of aid is not an acceptable humanitarian outcome.

DEAN: Yes. And to that end, we've seen a lot of chaos around the distribution of the aid by this new group, which CNN has reports isn't screening recipients of aid despite being established to keep supplies from Hamas. Now Hamas wants it to go through the U.N. Does the U.S. get behind this?

SANGER: It's a really good question because the Israelis at this point have had their finger on the control of the trucks that get in and so forth. And obviously, these scenes of chaos are no way to be distributing aid. It's not clear the U.N. would necessarily be that much more successful. The central problem is you need 600 or 700 trucks a day getting in there, just given the number of people, the amount of starvation and the amount of desperation.

Otherwise, you have this trickle of trucks coming in and then the chaos of attacks on the trucks as everybody just tries to get an incredibly limited amount of goods.

DEAN: Yes. I also want to talk about your reporting today on this U.N. nuclear watchdog report, which found Iran is ramping up uranium enrichment while these talks are happening with the U.S. Tell us more about what the report says, what you found.

SANGER: So two interesting things have happened today. The International Atomic Energy Agency, as you point out, has come out with their quarterly report in which they basically said that the Iranians had increased by 50 percent the amount of near-bomb grade uranium they've been producing, probably to put more pressure on the United States in these negotiations. But that leaves them with enough fuel for roughly 10 weapons. And when President Trump was inaugurated in January, we thought they had enough for five or six.

So they basically doubled the number of weapons they can produce just on President Trump's first few months or during President Trump's first few months in office. At the same time, the U.S. has now delivered to the Iranians the first sort of written document with elements of what could go into a nuclear deal. And President Trump, who pulled out of the old Obama era deal, has expressed a remarkable amount of confidence in the past couple of days that the Iranians will take this.

[16:25:02]

It calls for a freeze, total freeze on the enrichment of new uranium, the possible creation of a consortium with Arab states to build a nuclear facilities, peaceful nuclear facilities. We don't know if the Iranians will take that.

DEAN: Yes, we'll have to see. David Sanger, thank you so much. Good to see you.

SANGER: Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

DEAN: More than six months after losing the 2024 election, Governor Tim Walz is rallying Democrats in South Carolina. What he says the party needs to do to win back the working class. We'll take you there.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:04]

DEAN: The Supreme Court clearing the way for the Trump administration to suspend a Biden-era humanitarian policy. The program temporarily gave half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela the ability to live and work in the United States.

CNN Correspondent Rafael Romo is joining us now. Rafael, walk us through what this means for these migrants and where we go from here.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jessica. Well, it means that they face imminent deportation in the next few weeks or months. This is the second time this month the high court has sided with President Trump's efforts to revoke temporary legal status for some immigrants.

The Supreme Court had previously cleared the way for the administration to revoke another temporary program that provided work permits to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. The Supreme Court's brief ruling was not signed, and more importantly, Jessica, did not offer any reasoning behind the order, as is often the case on its emergency docket.

Though the decision isn't final and the underlying legal case will continue in lower courts, the ruling allows Trump officials to expedite deportations for an estimated 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who received temporary protection status during the Biden administration.

The immigrant community reacted with great concern for those affected, especially in Florida, where many of the immigrants from those countries live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL CHRISTIAN NAMPHY, FAMILY ACTION NETWORK MOVEMENT: Terrible, terrible, terrible uncertainty for our community members, people who came here legally.

MAUREEN PORRAS, DORAL VICE MAYOR & IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: This is a very devastating decision, and now we're going to see a lot of businesses whose employees had work permits under this parole program not show up to work tomorrow. It's really going to have a chilling effect.

ROMO: On the other hand, Jessica, many Republican political leaders applauded the high court's decision, including Florida Congressman Carlos Gutierrez -- Carlos Gimenez, I should say. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. REP. CARLOS GIMENEZ, (R-FL) DISTRICT 28: I think the Supreme Court actually ruled in the right way. Anything that can be implemented by executive order can actually be, I think, taken away by executive order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Jackson wrote that it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously append the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million non-citizens while their legal claims are pending.

And this kind of protection for immigrants fleeing violence or persecution was first used in the 1950s when the Eisenhower administration allowed tens of thousands of people flee in Hungary and Eastern Europe during a Soviet crackdown after World War II.

Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Rafael Romo with the latest on that. Thank you for your reporting.

Also this week, and Democrats are in South Carolina for the state's Democratic convention as the party looks to rebuild itself after a devastating defeat in November.

It's also trying to look toward the future. Some of the party's rising stars and potential 2028 hopefuls taking the stage, including former candidate for vice president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who gave his fellow Democrats a bold reality check.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): This is a Democrat. This woman is a Democrat. And she said a deer in the headlights. She said it's like they see the car coming, but they just stand there and get run over by the damn thing anyway. That's a review of our party by someone who actually likes us. It's a damning indictment, but I think it's right on the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's Arit John is joining us now from Columbia. Arit, you've been there watching these politicians speak to South Carolina Democrats. What's the reaction been like? What are you seeing?

ARIT JOHN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, I think that deer in the headlights metaphor that Governor Walz mentioned really resonated with a lot of voters who were here this weekend. You know, when I was talking to voters about what they -- how they feel about the Democratic Party right now, people said there's not a consistent message. They said that they're not seeing a lot of profiles and courage from their Democratic leaders.

At the same time, when you ask them, what did you think of Governor Walz' speech this morning? Or what did you think of Governor Moore's key note address last night? And they said, they said that, I mean, they were fired up about it and they agreed with the message that these Democrats were delivering, which is basically Democrats need to show that their policies have tangible impact in the lives of voters that they're trying to win over.

DEAN: Yeah, and look, so they're talking, obviously there is some talk around the 2028 presidential election and watching how these different politicians are kind of maneuvering themselves. But it sounds like they also were talking about this Republican bill currently making its way through Congress, which Democrats certainly hope is going to help them in the midterms that they can message around that. What are they saying?

JOHN: That's exactly right. I mean, when you listen to Moore and Walz and their teams, they said, this isn't about 2028, it's about meeting this moment with urgency, this 2025 moment, this 2026 moment. And a big part of that is messaging against this reconciliation bill.

[16:35:10]

And we heard both governors say that this is going to be a wealth transfer, that this is about raising taxes and hurting the low-income and working-class families at the expense of cutting taxes for -- for billionaires. I mean, at one point, Governor Walz said that called the bill a big, beautiful pile of BS.

So, they're clearly trying to tell Democrats, you know, we need to fight against -- they need to fight against this bill, they need to push back on reconciliation, they need to take this message that this is a tax cut for billionaires out to voters, and that's what we heard a lot of this weekend.

DEAN: Yeah, and then the question becomes, what will voters say? Arit John in South Carolina, thanks so much, we appreciate it.

What is it like inside a plane cockpit when air traffic control goes silent? CNN's Pete Muntean jumped in a simulator to see for himself. He'll take us along, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:42]

DEAN: With summer travel revving up, Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, is emphasizing it's still safe to fly despite the slew of problems plaguing air travel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: We have a limited amount of controllers. We're 3,000 short nationally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

DUFFY: And then, specifically in Newark, we have a runway that's been shut down.

A lot of the questions come, though, is it safe to fly? And of course it is. We have so many redundancies in place, but we have to fix the system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And it's not just the runway and controller shortage. The Newark Air Traffic Control Facility has seen multiple equipment outages this past month, resulting in radar screens going black and air traffic controllers losing contact with planes in the sky. CNN's Pete Muntean looks at how pilots prepare for that scenario.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAPT. MILES MORGAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF FLIGHT TRAINING, UNITED AIRLINES: Ready to go?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm at the controls of a Boeing 737 MAX simulator here at United Airlines Flight Training Center in Denver to see what pilots experience when air traffic control goes dark. It's the latest challenge for them, after flights in and out of Newark faced repeat failures of radar and radio earlier this month.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: We don't have a radar, so I don't know where you are.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Along with me is Captain Miles Morgan, who heads training for United.

(On camera): Would you say that these issues at Newark have caused any sort of degradation of safety?

MORGAN: Not at all. Safety for us, if you've got pilots that are operating into the airspace, it is safe for us to do so. We are 100% confident in that.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): This is some of the busiest airspace in the country. If air traffic controllers lose their radar scopes.

MORGAN: Traffic, traffic.

MUNTEAN: Morgan says pilots can fall back on the plane's Traffic Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS. It calls out collisions in the making and can even issue instructions to climb or descend.

MORGAN: It was traffic. So now, OK, I've stopped doing what I'm doing. I look -- I see it on the screen, 700 feet above. I acquire it visually, and now I'm monitoring. I'm making sure, hey, this is good. We're at a good airspace, we're safe.

MUNTEAN (on camera): The reason you're showing me this is to show that there are other layers here, there are other systems.

MORGAN: Exactly correct. We have a lot of different layers, and a lot of them rely on the external world, but we all have this internal system that our airplanes will talk to each other.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): But when controllers can't reach flights via radio, Morgan says pilots would try a previously used radio frequency.

MORGAN: Push this button, the previous frequency pops back up.

MUNTEAN: Try the emergency backup frequency.

MORGAN: This would be a backup if we couldn't raise it any other way.

MUNTEAN: Use data link text messaging to communicate with the airline.

MORGAN: And I can say, need frequency.

MUNTEAN: And dial in a transponder code that signals that communication has been lost. Decades old redundancies that air traffic controllers are trained for too.

NICK DANIELS, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: We were always prepared for it. The pilots were always prepared for it. Unfortunately, we're having to use those safety nets.

MORGAN: So, I'm going to start putting some flaps in for you.

MUNTEAN: Maybe to prove that flying is safe, Morgan even let me do the landing.

MORGAN: A little flare. Perfect. Boom.

MUNTEAN: Not my worst, as airlines insist the worst will not happen when air traffic control fails.

MORGAN: I don't really worry when something is a little abnormal. We're trained for all these abnormalities. It's not just this. It's -- we're constantly training for whatever could be going wrong and how to make a decision to rectify that.

MUNTEAN (on camera): This is especially pertinent since Newark is one of United's biggest hubs and the FAA has scaled back flights there in order to not overwhelm air traffic control. United says that actually led to it canceling no flights on Memorial Day or the day before.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that the federal government has taken steps to harden Newark air traffic control systems, but even still there needs to be a nationwide overhaul of air traffic control, he says, something that could cost tens of billions of dollars.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Pete, thank you. And when we come back, Taylor Swift shows she is the master in Mastermind. The singer finally buying her music catalog after going to extreme lengths to rerecord a lot of her songs in Taylor's version. Just more -- more on that just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:49:29]

DEAN: Taylor Swift and her music catalog are finally getting back together in a massive win to end a year's long battle for the pop star. Swift announced she now owns her entire music catalog, including all of her music videos, concert films and album art.

Now, you might remember Swift's former record label sold the masters of her first six albums, which she has fought for years to get back. And amid that battle, Swift released what she called Taylor's version albums for some of the old ones that she didn't own, re-recording all of the songs. The Taylor's version of the album's Fearless, Red, Speak Now and 1989, all hit number one on the Billboard 200 chart and included additional unreleased songs from the vault from those eras.

[16:50:10]

Bryan West, the Taylor Swift Reporter for "USA Today" is joining us now.

Bryan, it's great to have you here with us. And listen, I think anyone that's a Taylor Swift fan has followed this, but this has bigger implications than just for her. This is about the music industry writ large as well.

BRYAN WEST, TAYLOR SWIFT REPORTER, USA TODAY: Hi, Jessica, thanks for having me. Absolutely. Taylor Swift announced on Friday that she does now own all of her masters. And at the end of this lengthy letter that was on her website, she talked about how this is important for any artist that wants to own their music. She said, she realizes this was all for those artists that come up to her and say, you know, I renegotiated my contract or I fought harder so that I would own my original work and my masters.

DEAN: Yeah. And take people back, give them a cliff note version, if you will, on -- on what happened throughout all of this back and forth throughout this saga. There was the Scooter Braun of it all. Give people kind of the cliff notes.

WEST: So Taylor Swift signed with Big Machine Label Group. She was one of their very first artists. They actually turned 20 this year. And that's where she released her first six albums. That was from Debut, Fearless, Speak Now, 1989, Red, and also Reputation. And so that catalog of work was then sold to Scooter Braun's company, Ithaca Holdings.

Taylor ended up re-signing with Universal Music Group. And she said at the time that she wanted the option to own her masters, to buy it back, and she wasn't given that option. And so, for this entire time while she's been at Universal, she's wanted to buy back that catalog, her original work and discography, and wasn't able to do so.

Ithaca Holdings sold it to Shamrock Capital. And then she was able to work with Shamrock Capital and get all of her music, her music videos, everything back. And she just made the announcement. She said she was so pleased by this that she might get a Shamrock tattoo in the center of her forehead. DEAN: Yeah, it sounded like she was really excited. Again, this is just something she's been trying to do for a long time. And we don't know the exact cost of this, of her purchasing these masters, but it certainly didn't come cheap.

WEST: Her team hasn't released or disclosed exactly how much were in the negotiations and final contract. Billboard Magazine is estimating or saying that they have sources that it's $360 million, which when Shamrock bought this body of work, they bought it for around $300 million. So, they ended up working and negotiating with her team.

DEAN: And so what might this mean for the music industry moving forward? I know, as you noted, she talked about some of the younger artists that now are having a heavier hand in their contract or renegotiating it so they can own their original music. What do you think this means going forward?

WEST: I think this sets a precedent. It also shows any future artists that are coming, maybe they have some standing power. Taylor, you know, fought for two decades to own her entire music. And so, it definitely sets a message when it comes to those negotiations.

I know fans with anything Taylor does, they are so excited for what this could mean for future albums. So, in her letter, she did tease ahead to three potential albums that we could get full tracks from Reputation. Her Debut album turns 20 next year. We might be seeing that come around. She has fully recorded that, or even a brand-new project with TS12 or Taylor Swift, her 12th album or era.

DEAN: It is kind of amazing that she was able to -- first of all, just the idea of rerecording each of these albums that sound, you know, just painstakingly exactly the same, even better in some cases than the originals to go to all of that work. And then all of the hubbub surrounding the vault, you know, they're called vault songs, but they're essentially songs she wrote didn't put on the album at the time. And fans have gone nuts for all of this.

And it just seems like there's been big questions around, will she do Reputation next? I thought it was interesting. She said she's only rerecorded like less than a quarter of that album.

WEST: Exactly. And this idea came from Kelly Clarkson. So, Kelly had tweeted back then when she was upset she couldn't get or buy back all of her masters. She said, just rerecord them.

During her Time Magazine interview when she was Person of the Year, she said, that's like redoing your homework, but it allowed her to relive the eras. And Taylor has accumulated a very large global fan base.

So, you almost could argue that the eras tour might not have existed. This opportunity for her to revisit these old eras for new fans, they could learn about her previous work. And for fans who have been here all along, they could listen and support her as an artist because when you're listening to these songs and the music, the streams, that's going to Taylor. That's why she did the Taylor's version. Now, every single song she's ever produced is essentially Taylor's

version. So, a lot of fans were saying, I mean, Billboard, not Billboard, U.S. iTunes Reputation shot yesterday to the number one album spot because fans were so excited they could redownload the original and listen to that guilt-free knowing that it was going to Taylor.

[16:55:09]

DEAN: That is -- it's incredible. It's incredible. All right, Bryan West, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

WEST: Thanks, Jessica.

DEAN: Europe is firing back at President Trump after he revealed plans to double steel tariffs, the latest chapter in the global trade war. That's next.

And a quick programming note for you. George Clooney stars in Broadway's Good Night and Good Luck, presented live on CNN in a first- of-its-kind broadcast. You're going to be able to watch the Tony- nominated play next Saturday right here on CNN at 7 p.m. You can also stream it on CNN.com.

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