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Trump Says U.S.-Nippon Steel Deal Not Finalized; U.S. Consumer Confidence Stays Flat; Musk Exits Government Role but Will Keep Helping Trump; U.N. Warns Gaza is "Hungriest Place on Earth"; Russian Strikes on Ukraine Leave at Least Nine People Dead; Migrant Falsely Accused of Threatening Trump; Former U.S. President Joe Biden Speaks Publicly about Cancer Diagnosis; Wildfires Grow in Canada as Smoke Heads to U.S. Cities; Taylor Swift Buys Her Original Masters Outright from Private Equity Firm. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired May 31, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
U.S. president Donald Trump imposes fresh tariffs. We'll have details on his latest announcement and how American consumers are dealing with the trade war whiplash.
Huge wildfires are forcing evacuations in Canada and sending hazardous smoke toward major American cities. We'll have the latest on the dire situation.
And music to her ears. We'll explain Taylor Swift's latest accomplishment, calling it her "greatest dream come true."
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: We begin with U.S. president Donald Trump escalating his trade war once again, even as a legal battle brews over his authority to impose sweeping tariffs. He now says, starting Wednesday, his -- he'll double tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50 percent.
Trump made the announcement while speaking to steelworkers in Pennsylvania. He was there Friday to celebrate the purchase of U.S. Steel by Japan's Nippon Steel, a proposed deal he once vowed to oppose. But he says the agreement hasn't been finalized. Here he is.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The investment is controlled by the United States. And more importantly, they're spending the money on brick and mortar. You can't take it. What are you going to do?
Pick it up and move it to Japan?
That's not going to happen. And you know, I rejected this about four times now. And when they finally got it right, I liked it a lot. And you could see how happy the steelworkers were. More importantly, you could see, from the union's standpoint, the union loved it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Now it comes as president Trump accuses China of violating an agreement with the U.S. American officials had expected China to ease export restrictions on rare earth minerals but that hasn't happened.
Sources say both sides are trying to set up a call between presidents Trump and Xi to help get trade talks back on track. For more now on president Trump's speech in Pennsylvania, CNN's Kristen Holmes reports.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The big news out of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, the doubling of tariffs on steel. Donald Trump announcing those tariffs would go from 25 percent to 50 percent. But the comment that really raised a lot of eyebrows was how he said he got to this 50 percent number. Take a listen.
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TRUMP: 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 -- I had a feeling you were going to say that. So congratulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Donald Trump seemingly there saying that he came up with 50 percent off the cuff, on the fly, posing these numbers to advisers and deciding to get on stage and announce it.
Of course, this is bringing up even more questions, as so many are wondering what the end game is with these ongoing trade wars, when these deals or if these deals are coming.
Now the other thing I want to point to here about this deal with Japanese company Nippon and U.S. Steel, remember, this was a very controversial deal. It was one that, on the campaign, Donald Trump said he would never allow. Joe Biden actually blocked this deal. Now Donald Trump announced this last week. He said it wasn't an
acquisition, a Japanese acquisition of U.S. Steel, but instead it was a partnership.
But no parties today in the announcement actually answered the key question everyone wants to know, which is how much of U.S. Steel will the Japanese company Nippon Steel own at the end of this deal?
Remember the controversy being that the steelworkers' unions did not believe that these companies should be -- that this company should own U.S. Steel. They didn't believe in this deal. Because of that, we still don't have answers on what exactly that looks like at the end of the day -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. Census Bureau says the country's trade deficit plunged 46 percent last month. That follows Donald Trump's 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods and his 10 percent universal tariffs on imports.
Many businesses paused international orders, leaving them with lower inventory. And that could lead to consumers paying higher prices. Now despite easing tariff tensions, Americans aren't feeling more optimistic about the economy.
On Friday, we learned that the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index for May was just over 52 percent. The report says consumers remain quite worried about the future. Americans were more careful about spending last month. In March, consumers went on a buying binge somewhere, likely hoping to beat the looming tariffs.
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But in April, consumer spending rose just 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, new numbers show inflation is now just 0.10 percent above the Federal Reserve's target.
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BRUNHUBER: Stocks closed mixed on Friday as Donald Trump accused China of violating its trade agreement with the U.S. Overall, markets rose significantly in May after taking a hit in April. The S&P 500 posted its best month since 2023.
The U.S. Supreme Court hands Donald Trump a legal victory in his immigration crackdown for now. The court ruled Friday that the administration may temporarily suspend a parole program allowing migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to temporarily live and work in the country.
The emergency decision isn't final and the underlying legal case will continue in lower courts. It's the second time this month that the justices sided with the administration's efforts to revoke temporary legal status for immigrants.
The court also allowed the revocation of another program that provided work permits to Venezuelans.
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court has ruled that Trump's directive for mass firings at multiple agencies will remain on hold. The February executive order was paused in early May.
That's when a judge ruled the president needs congressional approval to conduct such a sweeping overhaul of government agencies, federal employees, unions, local governments and outside groups brought the case. On Friday the appeals court concluded that their arguments are likely to succeed.
The court says Trump's executive order, quote, "far exceeds the president's supervisory powers under the Constitution."
More than 100,000 federal workers were fired when Elon Musk was in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Well, Friday was the billionaire's last day at DOGE but Musk says he'll keep helping Donald Trump despite recently criticizing the president and his policies. Musk was in the Oval Office on Friday for a special farewell. CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more.
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JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The world's richest man, Elon Musk, takes his leave from president Trump's orbit on Friday at the White House in a very fond farewell in the Oval Office.
It was really quite something. These two men have been essentially joined at the hip for most of this administration and even before, going back to the election last summer, when Elon Musk invested some $275 million with the hope of electing Donald Trump as president once again.
He played a key role in shaping the cabinet and other agencies. And, of course, he led the Department of Government Efficiency.
There are many questions about the actual fallout and the after-effect of Elon Musk's role in government. He pledged at one point to trim some $2 trillion from the government coffers.
That did not happen. He scaled that back to $1 trillion and then much less than that. Of course, there was significant fallout in terms of tens and tens and thousands of government employees that decided to leave on their own or their agencies were closed.
But on Friday in the Oval Office, the president and Elon Musk had nothing but kind words to say for one another.
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TRUMP: We are totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste.
ELON MUSK, PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I expect. To continue to provide advice.
Whenever the president would like advice.
TRUMP: I hope so.
MUSK: I mean, I'm -- yes, it's -- I expect to remain a friend and an advisor. And certainly if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at the president's service.
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ZELENY: Now in recent weeks, there's no doubt that Elon Musk's influence has been waning here at the White House. He was less visible than he was before. That's largely because his own private enterprises were punishing him.
Essentially, the stock on Tesla, for example, SpaceX as well, they wanted him to make a choice between serving in the government and working in the private sector. So he did make that choice.
And on the way out the door, he was somewhat critical of the president's administration and the agenda as well, saying the big budget bill passed by the House, pending in the Senate, would not do enough to reduce government spending.
But again, on Friday, all smiles in the Oval Office, the president saying Elon Musk will be welcome back as an advisor at any point. Of course, he is still the world's richest man -- Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: For more on this, I want to bring in Inderjeet Parmar, who's a professor of international politics at City University of London.
Thank you so much for being here with us. So let's start there with Elon Musk's departure and what we saw in the Oval Office, that big sendoff, just a few days after Musk was critical of Trump's mega bill.
The optics of that big sendoff, I imagine, to show that they're on the same page.
But do you get the sense of a growing rift between the two?
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INDERJEET PARMAR, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: I think there is areas of which are really clearly very important, particularly around tariff policy as well as the big, so-called big, beautiful bill, which is going to increase the American -- the deficit greatly.
But there is also a very, very large areas of agreement. And Musk, if you like, you know, he put hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump's election. He has cut tens of thousands of jobs.
The whole idea of the state or the federal government as a kind of a set of institutions for the servicing of the needs of the American people, in health, education, welfare, Social Security and so on, has all been challenged and cut back.
And the more coercive parts of the state, as well as the ones which are kind of deregulating Big Business, all have been put forward. So yes, there's a big picture in which they're actually pretty closely aligned. But they do differ in various tactical areas of policy as well.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And DOGE apparently still recruiting. So even if Musk is leaving, DOGE doesn't seem to be going anywhere. You talked in broad strokes about the aims of DOGE and what Musk has done.
So just looking overall, what do you make of what Musk and DOJ's impact has been?
I mean, there have been, as you said, questions about how much actual waste has been found but no debating how deeply he and DOGE have gutted federal programs.
So what strikes you as the most important in terms of what they've done?
PARMAR: Well, I think U.S. aid, for example, has been cut back very, very severely and the very large impacts have been felt all around the world. And in many ways, rightly or wrongly, USAID is one of the agencies which, if you like, is a carrier of American soft power.
And it's a kind of reputational spend around the world, which says that U.S. is not just a military superpower but it also tries, at least, to promote development and promote education and health and the well-being outside of its own borders.
And if you like, that entire edifice of soft power has been fundamentally challenged by the Musk programs of cutting back the state, domestically and internationally. And the -- and there is a general "we're going to stand up for the big companies and their interests.
"We're going to deregulate them to do what they like and we're going to basically use the American market as a weapon to discipline our competitors, allies and foes."
So the reputation of the United States, on the basis of the kind of programs DOGE and Trump have been carried out, I think has been very, very severely damaged. And that soft power is definitely, I think, almost more or less evaporated.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's the international impact domestically. I mean, what DOGE has been doing has not broadly been very popular for Democrats. I mean, we saw in some of the recent elections that that Musk himself seemed to be a significant factor in rallying Democratic voters. He was a great foil. You know, he was broadly disliked by Democrats and independents. So
you know, Democrats will miss him as well.
PARMAR: Yes. Well, he did provide a kind of bogeyman in addition to Donald Trump, who is the probably the bogeyman (INAUDIBLE) and he did provide a target. And in a way, I suppose, a legitimate target, because, you know, he is a billionaire businessperson.
He has been brought into government, really, in a kind of quite unusual (INAUDIBLE) as some special advisor and given very wide- ranging powers over the whole range of government until many of the secretaries in the departments rebelled against it.
And it caused Donald Trump quite a bit of political fallout. So he -- what it shows is that there is a kind of limit to the Trump program if you go far too openly pro-corporate, where you have an actual figure, a name, a person, who appears to be running the show and was sometimes referred to as president Trump's boss.
So I think there were some political damage done on that basis. And I think in that regard, then I think the sidelining of Musk was a political imperative, because of the gift, as you talk about, to the to the opposition.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. Well, we'll have to see what role he'll continue to have in the administration officially or unofficially and how he will continue, possibly to be weaponized by Democrats. We'll leave it there. Inderjeet Parmar in London, thank you so much for speaking with us.
PARMAR: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: A controversial new program to distribute aid to Palestinians has been marred by chaos. And now the U.N. says Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth. We'll have details after a quick break.
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Plus, when voters asked a Republican senator about cuts to Medicaid, she didn't do her party any favors with her answer. Her tone-deaf response when we come back. Please stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. president Donald Trump says he believes negotiators are very close to reaching a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release agreement. He told reporters on Friday night that he believes Hamas wants to approve the new ceasefire proposal that Israel has already accepted. We'll have more on that in a moment. Meanwhile, an Israeli official tells CNN that Israel will block a
Palestinian plan to host a delegation of foreign ministers in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. But a Saudi official tells CNN that the country's foreign minister will travel to the West Bank anyway, where he plans to meet with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
Now this all comes as there's new international pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. Aid distribution has been chaotic in the first days of a controversial new plan backed by Israel and the U.S. On Friday, the U.N. issued a new plea to get more aid to Gaza's 2 million people.
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JENS LAERKE, OCHA SPOKESMAN: This limited number of truckloads that are coming in, is a trickle.
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It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger. It's not a flood. Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth.
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BRUNHUBER: President Trump says he'll share more on the Gaza ceasefire negotiations in the next day or two. We get more now from CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, as.
President Trump.
Says that Israel and.
Hamas are.
Quote, "very close to a ceasefire agreement,"
I'm learning.
New details.
About that latest U.S. proposal that's aimed at bridging the gap between the two sides.
Now we know that this proposal would involve a 60-day ceasefire, the release of 10 living and 18 deceased hostages. I'm now also learning that the negotiations to end the war in Gaza will begin on the first day of the ceasefire and will be presided over by the U.S. special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
We also are learning about the timing of the release of these hostages. Half of both the living and the dead hostages will be released on the first day of the agreement. The other half would be released on the seventh day.
In addition to that, 125 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences would be released, as well as over 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza who have been detained during the course of the war.
Now there are no guarantees from the United States in this proposal to end the war nor any assurances that a ceasefire will be extended as long as Israel and Hamas are continuing to negotiate.
And that is revealing itself to still be a sticking point in these talks with Hamas. The current proposal says that the negotiations may be extended, subject to the agreement of the parties.
It's also important to note that there's some specific language in this proposal relating to president Trump saying that he is committed to ensuring good faith negotiations continue and also that he would be the one to announce a ceasefire agreement.
Now Hamas has not only demanded that the U.S. provide guarantees that a ceasefire will be extended past the 60 days, as long as negotiations are still ongoing to end the war; they are also asking that Israel be made to pull back to its military positions from the last ceasefire, meaning pulling back closer to the Israeli border.
Now as those negotiations continue, Gaza is still being roiled by a hunger crisis. And we are seeing these continued scenes of desperation surrounding these aid sites run by this controversial new U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
We are also learning that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation isn't conducting any screenings of Palestinians who are showing up to this site; no ID checks, no security checks.
And that's quite surprising, given the fact that Israeli officials have said the reason why this foundation is their preferred mechanism for getting aid into Gaza is because they will ensure that the aid only goes to civilians in need and isn't stolen or taken by Hamas.
Beyond that, we know that the United Nations, for example, their aid agencies actually do conduct some ID checks, checking databases of family names and checking people off of a list so that people don't come back over and over again to get more than their provided ration.
And we are already seeing evidence of criminal gangs and merchants taking advantage of the lack of checks at these Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, with several eyewitnesses telling us that they saw people who were paid by the merchants going in, taking boxes that would then be resold on the black market.
Now the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, they have told me that they are more concerned right now about feeding Gaza's population than conducting ID checks. They said they would continuously assess the situation to determine whether they will carry out ID checks in the future.
But what is clear is that Gaza's hunger crisis is very much still continuing, has yet to be alleviated by this new aid delivery mechanism nor by the trickle of aid that Israel has allowed into the Strip via the United Nations.
In particular, because Israel, according to the U.N., hasn't provided safe routes to get those aid trucks to the northern part of the strip where that hunger crisis is most acute -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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BRUNHUBER: Ukraine says Russian strikes have killed at least nine people across the country over the past 24 hours. Two dozen others have been injured as Russia keeps up the pace of its attacks, which included the Sumy region today.
New video shows firefighters scrambling to put out flames and buildings that apparently took a major hit. Meanwhile, U.S. senators will move next week on a proposal to slap 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and other products.
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Reuters says senator Lindsey Graham made the statement yesterday when he met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Zelenskyy says there's still no guarantee Ukraine will show up at the next direct peace talks with Russia.
Moscow wants to hold them in Istanbul on Monday. But Ukraine says Russia is still withholding its blueprint for a possible ceasefire, even though Kyiv says it has shared its own proposal with Moscow.
All right, much more to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, including calls for Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem to correct the record after accusing a migrant of threatening the president.
Plus, a transgender high school athlete in California found herself in the spotlight this week, thanks to the U.S. president. That story and much more after the break. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Let's check some of today's top stories.
U.S. president Donald Trump has announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into the U.S. He says the rates will double from 25 percent to 50 percent starting on Wednesday. Trump says the move will further secure the steel industry in the United States.
Friday was Elon Musk's last day as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump held a special farewell for the billionaire in the Oval Office. Musk says he will keep helping Donald Trump, despite recently criticizing the president and his policies.
In the stock market this week, the S&P 500 posted its best month since 2023 as Wall Street tries to ignore trade war uncertainty.
Advocates for an undocumented migrant in Wisconsin are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to issue a correction.
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They say the man was falsely accused of threatening the president and is now getting death threats. CNN's Tom Foreman explains.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "It is time Donald J. Trump get what he has coming. I will self-deport but not before I shoot your precious president in the head."
The words are plain and poisonous in the letter mailed to ICE. And for Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem, proof enough to arrest the supposed author, Ramon Morales-Reyes.
"Thanks to our ICE officers," she wrote, "this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars."
But hold on. Even though the letter talks about shooting the president at a rally, as happened last year, advocates for Morales Reyes says Homeland Security is being duped and he's being framed.
KIM ABDULLY, ATTORNEY FOR RAMON MORALES-REYES: He's just as shocked as any of us about these allegations.
FOREMAN: His family insists the 54-year-old immigrant is a hardworking family man who doesn't really speak English, can barely write Spanish and has nothing to do with a menacing note. Police agree.
Sources familiar with the case tell CNN. Morales-Reyes was the victim of an assault and robbery and this looks like an attempt to get him deported before he can testify about the attack.
ABDULLY: He was a victim of a crime. He reported it to the authorities, has cooperated with investigation and ongoing prosecution in that case and is continuing to be a witness in that case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?
FOREMAN: The handling of his case by the feds could be another black eye for Secretary Noem, who is facing sharp accusations that the administration is at times ignoring the law and evidence to speed up deportations.
And even when mistakes are found, such as when that undocumented migrant living in Maryland was sent to prison in El Salvador, digging in.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He will never live in the United States of America again.
FOREMAN: For now, it is unclear what comes next for Morales-Reyes or those closest to him.
CHRISTINE NEUMANN-ORTIZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VOCES DE LA FRONTERA: This false claim, you know, has now had the consequence that the family, you know, feels that their lives are being threatened.
FOREMAN: The police evidence suggesting this man was targeted purely because someone thought they could get him thrown out of the country, by making a false claim against him because he's an immigrant, is really quite striking. And there is also this.
While Homeland Security is still talking about the possibility of deportation, they're not talking about this fake claim of an attack on the president any more -- Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: The FBI is investigating an elaborate plot to impersonate Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. A senior White House official tells CNN Wiles believes her personal phone and contact lists were hacked, allowing the impersonator to reach governors, senators and business executives.
"The Wall Street Journal" reports that this includes text messages and phone calls, some reportedly sent in recent days.
When Iowa voters asked Republican senator Joni Ernst about Medicaid cuts that could lead to deaths, she replied, quote, "Well, we're all going to die."
The exchange happened at a town hall meeting with voters in Iowa on Friday. She was addressing concerns over Donald Trump's domestic budget and policy bill and its possible cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Listen to this.
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SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): When you are arguing -- when you are arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid benefits, 1.4 million, 1.4, they're not -- they are not eligible. So they will be coming off. So we -- people are not -- well, we all are going to die. So for heaven's sakes -- for heaven's sakes, folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Ernst later told the crowd that people who met eligibility requirements for Medicaid would be protected. The House version of the bill would institute work requirements for some Medicaid recipients. And that's been a long time Republican goal.
Senator Ernst was one of only a few Republicans to hold public meetings during the congressional recess.
Well, for the first time, Joe Biden spoke publicly about his cancer diagnosis. The former president was at a Memorial Day service in Delaware on Friday. Addressing the audience, he offered a strong defense of democracy and the country's founding ideals.
He also paid tribute to members of the armed services and warned against political interference with the military. Afterward, he spoke out about his battle with cancer.
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JOE BIDEN (D), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, we're working on everything. It's moving along. I feel good. It's all a matter of taking a pill. One particular day and for the next six weeks and then another one. The expectation is we're going to be able to beat this.
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BRUNHUBER: Biden was also asked about his mental and physical fitness while he was president. Listen to this.
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QUESTION: There's also been a lot of discussion recently about your mental, mental and physical capabilities while you were in office.
BIDEN: You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: A transgender high school student who was pushed into the national spotlight by the president has advanced to the California state track and field finals.
Donald Trump threatened to withhold the state's federal funding over her participation in the championships. CNN's Julia Vargas Jones was there for the competition and has this report.
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JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN PRODUCER: A.B. Hernandez, the transgender teen that is at the center of this controversy over the participation of trans women and girls in sports, has advanced to the final of the California track and field championship here in Clovis, California.
That is under the new rules that the CIF put in place this week, where they not only added an extra slot for cisgender girls to participate in the events where A.B. Hernandez was qualifying but they also said that they will award an extra medal for a girl that would have made to the podium had she not competed.
Now California has, since 2013, allowed transgender athletes to compete in the category that they identify with.
But now the Justice Department is investigating whether that state law in California is actually a violation of Title IX, a federal law that says that that cannot be any sex-based discrimination in any learning institutions that receive any kind of federal funding.
Now governor Gavin Newsom of California has said that these changes from the California Interscholastic Federation are a good compromise.
But he had said previously back in March, in his podcast, that trans athletes competing in girls' sports raise an issue of fairness. Now here at the competition, we did hear those sentiments echoed by parents and activists that showed up to protest her participation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAYLA ANDERSON, PROTESTER: I don't think that having a male and female competition is fair competition. He's an athlete or she's an athlete, whatever she claims to be, it should be that he competes in his biological field which is male.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: Now it's worth mentioning that there were only a handful of protesters at the competition. Most parents that came with their children said they think they don't want this issue to be politicized and they prefer for the focus to be on the athletic competition at hand.
Both A.B. Hernandez and her mother have also spoken multiple times about her right to compete, defending her participation in the state competition, saying that she is a girl like any other member of her team; which, by the way, she says, very much supports her and loves her -- Julia Vargas Jones CNN, Clovis, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Fire season is hitting Canada hard. Just ahead, flames are sweeping through numerous areas in the country and the smoke knows no borders as it crosses into the U.S. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: -- will avoid criminal prosecution over its role in two plane crashes that killed close to 350 people. On Friday, the Justice Department dropped its criminal case and reached a non-prosecution agreement with the company. It requires Boeing to pay more than $400 million in victim compensation, on top of $0.5 billion it already paid.
Now this comes despite Boeing agreeing last year to plead guilty in the case. Some victims' families are outraged, saying Boeing's responsibility is being swept under the rug. The crashes included two 737 MAX planes, which went down in Ethiopia and Indonesia in 2018 and 2019. The incidents were linked to a design flaw in the aircraft.
The Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan are under month- long states of emergency as wildfires burn out of control. Some 180 wildfires are burning, which is extremely high this early in Canada's fire season. Thousands of people are being forced from their homes.
Extreme heat and drought have been driving record wildfire seasons over the last two years. It's hard to comprehend the scope of the flames. But in Manitoba alone, an area twice the size of New York City have burned this week.
The intense flames are also pushing dangerous smoke toward major cities in the northern United States. The smoke plume from fires is covering over 0.5 million square miles, twice the size of Texas, causing decreased visibility and increasing health risks.
All right. Joining me now to talk about what's ahead is professor Peter DeCarlo. He's an environmental health and engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University and joins us live from Baltimore, Maryland.
Thank you so much for being here with us early this morning. So what we're seeing now, the smoke from Canadian wildfires, is typical of a growing trend.
We saw this year the American Lung Association's report found that some 156 million Americans, 25 million more than last year, are now living with -- in areas with failing air quality grades, mainly because of impacts of wildfires, not just because of American fires but Canadian fires as well.
PROFESSOR PETER DECARLO, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND ENGINEERING, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Yes. Well, first of all, thanks for having me and happy to talk about these issues.
The wildfire smoke is definitely impacting air quality and causing things like particulate matter to be higher on average than they have been historically. And this is something that will probably continue as we experience changes in our climate system. And we expect this is an outcome. We expect more wildfires and more smoke in the future.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, it's just surprising for many people who are living nowhere near these fires that they'd be impacted from smoke from another country.
DECARLO: Yes, yes. No, air pollution doesn't respect international boundaries or state boundaries. And so, you know, the smoke that's generated from these fires gets into the air and gets transported with the wind.
And so downwind, cities are being impacted, you know, thousands of miles away from these fires. It's just the way the atmosphere works.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. So the smoke itself, you've studied it closely.
What makes wildfire smoke so particularly dangerous?
DECARLO: It's particulate matter.
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And the gases that are emitted from fires when the fire burns are dangerous to health. And we have many health studies showing this.
And it's not so much that it's the particular -- particulate matter is so different. It is a little bit different than what you'd expect in kind of an urban area in air pollution.
But the fact that there's so much of it, it's this higher concentration that you're breathing kind of overwhelms your body and can lead to kind of the health issues that we expect from air pollution; in this case, wildfire smoke.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And as you said, it's a growing problem. And we have this paradox. The Clean Air Act has reduced soot pollution by about 40 percent since 2000. But wildfire smoke is really undermining all those decades of progress.
DECARLO: Yes, we've gotten to a point where we've cleaned up most of the former sources of air pollution. And now these other sources are really showing how they can change and, year to year, change the amount that a city and the people who live in that city experience from an air quality perspective.
So yes, the Clean Air Act has done a really good job in getting us to the level that we're at. But now that's being threatened by climate change and increasing frequency of things like wildfire events.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And unfortunately, people experience this in uneven ways, I guess. The new report that I cited there suggests that people of color are more than twice as likely as white people to be living with bad air.
Why is that?
DECARLO: Oh, there's a host of reasons. I think, you know, historically, the areas in which people are able to live or afford to live tend to be associated with places that are environmentally -- have environmental concerns.
And you often find groupings of people who can't afford to live elsewhere. Often you'll also find industry will move into an area where they anticipate there'll be less resistance for that.
So the air pollution, disproportionate impacts of air quality can arise from a variety of factors. In the case of wildfire smoke coming from thousands of miles away, it's kind of hitting everyone all together in the same -- mostly in the same way, although there are differences in how people are exposed. A lot of that happens in our home.
So someone with a tight home with air conditioning and central air may be able to kind of filter out some of the smoke that gets into their home; whereas people who don't have air conditioning have to cool their home by opening windows, means they're going to get exposed to higher amounts of wildfire smoke.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. Well, you've talked about one possible solution for this.
I mean, given that fires are becoming more and more common, how can vulnerable states and cities become better prepared and individuals as well?
What are the most effective and accessible strategies for Americans to protect their indoor air quality when there is wildfire smoke in the air?
DECARLO: Yes. I mean, I think the first thing to do is check to see that you're getting wildfire -- and sometimes it's very obvious. You walk outside and you see kind of that haze.
And if that's the case, you know, maybe don't exercise that day. If you do exercise, do it indoors in a place with good ventilation. But going outside and running, you're going to expose yourself to a much higher level of air pollution.
If you have a home that has central air, central heat, you can turn on the fan. If you have a good filter in your in your central air system, that will help remove the particulate matter from the air in your home.
And maybe cities need to start investing in things like clean air centers, much like we have cooling centers for people who are experiencing heat waves.
Having a good ventilation system and a cooling center would be a good way to allow people to come and get into kind of cleaner filtered air during these wildfire events and reduce their exposure to this wildfire smoke.
BRUNHUBER: Good advice for millions of Americans who will be affected by this wildfire smoke that's now pouring across the border from Canada. Really appreciate it, Peter DeCarlo, thank you so much for speaking with us.
DECARLO: Thank you for having me.
BRUNHUBER: All right.
Massive flooding in Northern Nigeria has killed more than 150 people. Nigeria had heavy rains on Thursday. And a dam collapse on Friday made the flooding even worse. Emergency management officials told CNN they've recovered 151 bodies and that many children are among them. Officials say the floods began early Thursday, when many people were
sleeping. They say the flood ravaged two communities and left some buildings submerged.
We'll have much more to come here on CNN NEWSROOM after this. Please do stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Well, we're almost in June, which is traditionally Pride Month across the United States. In Wisconsin, the governor praised the pride flag over the state capital in honor of the LGBTQ community for the entire month.
And in Washington, D.C., the mayor ushered in World Pride Month. Muriel Bowser said the flag tells the story of pride, perseverance and progress. People from around the world will gather in Washington for a parade and political rally. Protests are expected to center around president Donald Trump's rollback of rights for LGBTQ communities.
Taylor Swift has announced that she now owns her entire music catalog. After a six-year battle, the megastar announced that she was able to purchase her master recordings outright from the private equity company that previously owned them. Randi Kaye has more.
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TAYLOR SWIFT, AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER: I've always wanted to own my own music.
RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And now she does. Taylor Swift announced the news on her website today, writing, "All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me."
Back in 2019, Swift said she'd been, quote, "blindsided" when the master recordings of her first six albums were part of the deal when her former label was sold to producer Scooter Braun.
TAYLOR: I made it very clear that I wanted to be able to buy my music.
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That opportunity was not given to me and it was sold to somebody else.
KAYE (voice-over): Braun insisted Swift's team was aware of the pending deal. Swift wrote on Tumblr then that the $300 million deal "stripped me of my life's work." She moved on and signed with Universal Music Group's Republic Records, which allowed her to own her future masters. She also found a way to reclaim ownership of most of her earlier music by rerecording her first five albums.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a plan.
TAYLOR: Yes, absolutely.
I just figured I was the one who made this music first. I can just make it again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TAYLOR: So that's what we're doing.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to say it.
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TAYLOR: So that what we're doing. So when something says in parenthesis, "Taylor's version" next to it, that means I own it, which is exciting.
KAYE (voice-over): And when Swift announced her new album "Lover" on Good Morning America in 2019 --
TAYLOR: One thing about this album that's really special to me is that it's the first one that I will own. I think that artists deserve to own their work. I just feel very passionately about that.
My contract says that starting November 2020, so next year, I can record albums one through five all over again.
KAYE (voice-over): And now Swift also owns all her music videos, concert films, album art and photography, along with unreleased songs purchased.
She wrote, "with no strings attached" from a private equity company that had bought her master recordings. Swift told her fans, "This is my greatest dream come true" -- Randi Kaye, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.
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BRUNHUBER: All right, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
For our audience in North America, "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. For the rest of the world, it's "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS."
