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Gaza Aid Distribution Sites To Be Closed Wednesday; Ukraine Strikes Bridge Connecting Russia To Crimea With Underwater Explosives; Lee Jae-Myung Wins South Korea Presidency; South Korea's Lee Jae-Myung Sworn In As New President; Mexico's Ruling Party Expands Power In Supreme Court; Higher Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Imports Go Into Effect; Tehran Says It Will Not Bow To U.S. Pressure; Visas Revoked For Suspect's Family, Now In ICE Custody; Three Attacks In Two Months Have Jewish Community On Edge; Google DeepMind CEO On The Fears, Hopes And Future For A.I.; Fire Rejuvenates The Land In South Africa's Cape Floral Kingdom. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired June 04, 2025 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world and to everyone streaming joining us on CNN Max, I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, the Israeli military warns Gaza residents to stay away from aid distribution centers today following three straight days of Palestinians being killed as they desperately try to get food.
Ukraine pulls off a surprise strike on a key bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. And South Korea's opposition leader is sworn in as the country's new president, vowing to seek dialogue and peace in the north.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Atlanta. This is CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church.
CHURCH: Israel's military is warning residents of Gaza against heading to aid centers on Wednesday, calling them, quote, combat zones. The warning follows three days of deadly incidents near aid distribution centers. Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured while trying to collect aid and there conflicting reports on what happened.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it's closing its aid sites on Wednesday for logistical preparations. The U.S. and Israel backed organization has been criticized by the United Nations for its limited number of distribution sites. And the U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on Wednesday on a resolution demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, according to a Slovenian diplomatic.
The U.N. also reiterated the call for an independent investigation into the aid incidents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHENAE DIJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESPERSON: It is unacceptable. Civilians are risking and in several instances losing their lives just trying to get food. Palestinians have the fundamental right to adequate food and to be free from hunger. The secretary general continues to call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for the perpetrators to be held to account.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more on the aftermath of the deadly incidents near aid sites.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: For the third day in a row now, we have seen these crowds of people who have been heading to this aid site in Tal Al Sultan in the southern part of Gaza coming under fire. And for the third day in a row, eyewitnesses on the ground as well as doctors at local hospitals are saying that it was the Israeli military that opened fire.
And today, unlike on Sunday, the Israeli military is actually acknowledging that they did in fact open fire on at least some of the people who were headed towards this site about a half a kilometer away from this aid distribution site. They acknowledged that they opened fire.
They say they first fired warning shots and then ultimately fired at people who they say were advancing suspiciously towards their troops. They don't talk about a casualty number, but the Palestinian Ministry of Health has said that at least 27 people were killed and dozens injured in the gunfire.
And among them, there clearly are civilians. A mother of eight, for example, whose son was mourning her alongside her body. She had gone to thiss -- he was trying to get to this site in order to feed her family.
And all of this, of course, speaks to the ongoing desperation that we are seeing in Gaza, the fact that, you know, a week and a half into this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, people are still crowding by the thousands to these to this aid site in southern Gaza because clearly there still is not enough food yet in the Gaza Strip.
And interestingly, you know, while the Gaza Humanitarian foundation has, you know, really tried to suggest that everything is still going hunky dory in the Gaza Strip as it relates to their operations, we maybe saw the first acknowledgement that it's not from them. They are actually closing down entirely for a day.
A GHF spokesman saying that they are closing it to make logistical preparations to better handle the large number of people who are arriving.
And also the Israeli military will be making, quote, preparations on the access routes. Those are the very same access routes where crowds of Palestinians have come under fire for three days in a row now. So clearly there seems to be some acknowledgment that things are not going swimmingly, to say the least.
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CHURCH: Ukraine has carried out yet another daring attack just days after striking military targets deep inside Russia.
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This time Ukraine's security service says it hit the Kerch Bridge, a key supply line for Moscow's troops connecting Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. CNN's Nic Robertson has more.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Ukraine's latest spectacular attack targeting the Crimea bridge vital to Russia's war in Ukraine. 1100 kilograms of explosives hidden underwater, a months long operation according Ukraine's security service.
It's not the first time Ukraine has tried to take out the 12-mile rail and road bridge that links mainland Russia to Annex Crimea.
In 2022, Ukraine blew up the roadway briefly disrupting Russia's flow of war fighting materiel. In 2023, Ukraine again tried to take out the bridge, pioneering new technology, a so called sea baby or water drone hitting the bridge at water level. But the bridge held.
The estimated $3.7 billion link was opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, four years after he illegally annexed Crimea during Russia's first invasion of Ukraine.
Roughly the size of Maryland, Crimea is hugely to Putin, home to Russia's strategic Black Sea fleet and a key hub in attacking Ukraine.
Since his 2022 Ukraine land grab, Putin has also secured a land link to the island like peninsula, Ukraine has vowed never to give it up. Ukraine's Crimea bridge attack comes days after another spectacular strategic strike hitting Russia's long range bombers at air bases thousands of kilometers from Ukraine.
But on the grinding battlefront, Ukraine is incrementally losing ground. Nowhere faster right now than around the northern city of Sumy. Russian artillery now so close they are striking the city center. At least 4 civilians killed, about 20 injured Tuesday according to city officials.
ROBERTSON: With peace talks effectively deadlocked Ukraine's strategic moonshots definitely a boost for morale and a hint they still have some hidden cards to play but this as Putin seems intent to ignore President Donald Trump's calls for a cease fire. Putin opting instead for a war of attrition. Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: South Korea's newly elected president is vowing to revive the nation's economy and restore democracy months after a divisive martial law declaration. 60 year old Lee Jae-myung took the oath office just a few hours ago. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party won by about 3 million votes over his closest rival Kim Mun-soo. He is promising a strong stance on North Korea while working to resolve differences.
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LEE JAE-MYUNG, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Based on the strong South Korea U.S. alliance as our foundation, we will respond firmly to North Korea's nuclear threats while also keeping communication channels open. We'll also work toward peace on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and cooperation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: CNN's Mike Valerio joins us live again from Seoul. Good to see you, Mike. So a new president for South Korea who says he plans to build a completely new nation. How will President Lee do that? And what is the mood in the country right now?
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, it's certainly one of wariness, but it's one of hope. And when we're talking about what he needs to do to rebuild the architecture, the political architecture of this nation, part of it starts right here. We are in the heart of South Korea's democracy, the National Assembly. He was talking about rebuilding trust that South Korea has among its democratic allies.
So we're going to talk about who is Lee Jae-myung and his potential paths as he embarks to rebuild that trust.
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VALERIO (voice-over): Lee's South Korea's choice to lead the nation out of a storm. Lee Jae-myung, South Korea's newly elected president, taking office six months after his predecessor declared martial law and later was impeached, a move that challenged South Korean democracy and sparked huge protests.
LEE (through translator): Dear citizens of the Republic of Korea, I sincerely thank you. I will never forget the mission you have entrusted in me, and I will carry it out faithfully and thoroughly. I will uphold the mission of fully overcoming the insurrection and ensure that a military coup that threatens people with weapons would never happen again.
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VALERIO: Lee has two immediate priorities on the world stage. They are stabilizing South Korea's economy, still in the tempest of a trade war. And reassuring international allies taken aback by martial law that South Korea's democracy stands firm.
DUYEON KIM, ADJUCT SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY: I think a long cleanup job awaits this current South Korean president because the society is highly polarized. It's coming on the heels of martial law attempt.
VALERIO: Lee once described himself as a South Korean version of Bernie Sanders. Lee is a progressive leader whose views were forged growing up as a poor factory worker, his family without enough money to send him to middle school. And Lee's left wrist was crushed in a machine when he was a boy on a baseball glove assembly line. Lee became a human rights lawyer, mayor, and then governor of South Korea's most populous province.
He rose to prominence as a vocal critic of South Korea's conservatives and led the charge to impeach South Korea's former president, Yoon Suk Yeol after Yoon's martial law fiasco.
LEE (voice-over): It was brief, but South Korea was at a crossroads. Whether a true democracy, one of the world's top 10 economic powerhouses, a culturally recognized nation was going to fall into becoming a backward third world country or to recover to normalcy.
VALERIO (voice-over): Lee takes power at a perilous time. Tech titan South Korea could have its economy take a major hit if trade tremors continue. There's also North Korea newly aligned with Russia. Lee supports a less confrontational approach to relations with Kim Jong Un, a departure from South Korea's last president.
Still, for many, the election was about something deeper, the restoration of normalcy after a brush with authoritarianism.
SHIN KA-RAM, VOTER (through translator): I'm not in the generation that participated in the previous democratic movements, but I felt that democracy was under threat, and that feeling pushed me to come and vote today.
VALERIO (voice-over): For years, Lee's been dogged by allegations of bribery, election law violations, and a land deal scandal charges he denies. It's unclear if presidential immunity will shield him. For now, a weary nation moves forward. Lee tasked with twin priorities to deliver stability and a reset for South Korea's democracy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VALERIO: OK, so, Rosemary, the view from Seoul at this hour we're waiting to see when newly elected president Lee begins to speak with U.S. President Donald Trump. When that phone call is going to happen? Not so much, you know, for the political tick tock, for the sake of knowing when that phone call is going to happen.
We're interested in it because we want to know what kind of rapport develops between South Korea's President Lee and President Trump, Are they going to buddy-buddy, are they going to be very simpatico, or could the relationship perhaps be a little more distant?
And will President Lee continue the very close relationship with the United States as a counter to China? Based on what we heard from this inaugural speech, President Lee says yes, that partnership will continue and a partnership with Tokyo to counter China. So a lot going on in the days ahead. CHURCH: Absolutely. We'll see what happens. Mike Valerio in Seoul,
many thanks for that live report. Appreciate it.
Preliminary results from Mexico's judicial election show the country's ruling party gained more seats in the Supreme Court. That will give President Claudia Sheinbaum's party control of every branch of government. Only about 13 percent of voters took part in the controversial election Sunday.
Critics say putting the judiciary itself up for a vote was a dangerous move. They warn it could open up avenues for corruption from judges and organized crime and that it could violate the rule of law. Sheinbaum addressed the criticism, saying the new court must focus on justice and impartiality.
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CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM, MEXICAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The new court, of course, will depend on them. They are autonomous. But the new judiciary must focus on ensuring access to justice in our country. That is its main function. If during the transition process, because there is always a transition process, they find irregularities, they must report them, especially since they are the guardians of justice. But there should not be, in my view, a situation of persecution. Rather, they should focus on access to justice.
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CHURCH: More results from Mexico's judicial elections are expected to be released in the coming days.
Still ahead, a friendly reminder from the White House about a fast approaching deadline for trade proposals, what that means for U.S. trading partners. So we'll take a look.
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CHURCH: New U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are now in effect. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday doubling the tariffs from 25 percent to 50 percent. Critics warn this could lead to higher prices on everything from cars and appliances to electrical equipment and even groceries.
But the U.S. President insists the action will boost manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade representative has told all countries that trade with the United States to submit their best trade proposals by Wednesday.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: USTR sent this letter to all of our trading partners just to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up and they are in talks. Ambassador Greer, Secretary Bessent and Secretary Lutnick are in talks with many of our key trading partners around the globe.
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As you know, Brian, I know the Wall Street Journal has covered this quite heavily. And they continue to be engaged in those discussions. And this letter was simply to remind these countries that the deadline is approaching and the president expects good deals. And we are on track for that. I will emphasize.
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CHURCH: To New York now and Rana Foroohar, CNN global economic analyst. She's also a global business columnist and associate editor with the Financial Times. Good to have you with us.
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Great to be here.
CHURCH: So ahead of a much anticipated phone call between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, China is mocking Trump, saying he's losing his own trade war with Beijing and portraying the U.S. as increasingly isolated economically after Trump previously criticized China. So where do you see this going and how might this back and forth impact the outcome of that critical phone call?
FOROOHAR: Well, it's interesting. I mean, you know, there are the facts on the ground about trade and then there are the psychologies of the leaders of the U.S. and China. And, you know, I would say that in some ways, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have a few things in common. They're both quite nationalistic. They tend to like things to go their way. You know, these are two powerful leaders that are squaring off and neither of them can really afford politically to be seen as being weak.
You know, weakness and the perception of political loss is something that's completely unacceptable. Trump, we've seen that again and again. And China is at a moment where it really can't afford to be seen to be kowtowing to Donald Trump.
So I think Xi Jinping is in a position where, you know, even if he wasn't naturally inclined to play it tough, I think politically it's difficult at this moment for China to back down in the face of Trump's tariffs war.
CHURCH: And just weeks away from the deadline for the 90-day pause on tariffs, the White House that President Trump has sent out letters to major U.S. trading partners demanding their best offers by the end of today, Wednesday, calling this a friendly reminder in an apparent effort to get deals done before that July 8 deadline. What's your response to this method of making trade deals?
FOROOHAR: Well, I think Trump's strategy has always been to divide and conquer. You know, he looks for who's weak in any given trading bloc, tries to sort of pull weaker nations apart from their natural blocs. I mean, in some ways, you would look at the trade deal that's been cut with the U.K. and say, well, shouldn't the UK's natural alliance be with Europe post-Brexit. Of course that's not the case.
But I think one of the things that Trump likes to do is to really kind of separate nations out and really try and make them negotiate on their own. I've been a little bit surprised frankly that we haven't seen the more open alliance making between countries outside the U.S.
I'm surprised we haven't seen China and the European Union for example, coming out with some, you know, shared talking points or shared approaches to Trump. That to me would be the way to deal with the U.S. President, but we haven't seen yet.
CHURCH: And Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday that quote, because of tariffs, our economy is booming. As an economist yourself, what do you say to that, particularly after the OECD just slashed its U.S. growth forecast, bringing global expectations down with it?
FOROOHAR: Yes, it's really kind of tragic, Rosemary, because you know, the U.S. had the strongest recovery in the post-COVID world. I mean we really were the envy of the rest of the world coming out of the pandemic over the last few years that's been squandered.
You know, the U.S. economy has been strong, it has been robust. Jobs numbers are still pretty good. Amazing, you know, despite everything. But absolutely the OECD is saying by the end of 2025 and into 2026, we are going to see growth that's about half of what it was over the last few years. So that's a big blow. And the U.S. is coming in way weaker than many other countries. So it's as though the tables have been turned really in this administration.
CHURCH: And Rana, we're also hearing warnings about a crack in the bond market. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon a panic when that happens, is it too late to stop that from happening if the trade war drags on?
FOROOHAR: Boy, you know, I think if we see high double digit tariffs, if we see on again, off again legal remedies, I think the bond market is going to crack. You know, we've already seen this happening and it's going to be very difficult for the Fed to lower interest rates at this point given the tariffs that are coming.
We hear them being felt, you know, in middle America and else and other parts of the world. And with inflation the way it's looking like it's going to be really, really hard to lower rates.
[01:25:09]
That puts pressure on the U.S. government. It makes debt more expensive at a time when there are fewer foreign buyers for U.S. Treasury bills. The bond market doesn't like any of this and it doesn't like the uncertainty.
CHURCH: And you mention the debt. I mean, billionaire Elon Musk is publicly breaking with President Trump calling his Big, Beautiful Bill a disgusting abomination because it add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt. How damaging could Trump's spending bill be if it gets through the Senate in its current form? FOROOHAR: Well, very damaging. You know, the rule of thumb is that you
want to spend when there's a crisis, which is what happened during COVID. You saw the Biden administration really pouring money into the economy. That's why we had such a robust recovery. But then you need to use the good times to really scale back. And instead we're doing just the opposite. We're giving billionaires a tax break and wreck the debt and deficit picture.
CHURCH: Rana Foroohar, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.
One critical front in the simmering U.S.-China trade war involves pharmaceuticals. The U.S. relies heavily on China for certain drug supplies and Beijing could use that dependence to its advantage. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout explains.
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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the most prescribed antibiotic in the United States. Amoxicillin is used to treat everything from chest and sinus infections to strep throat. And China controls 80 percent of the raw ingredients needed to make it.
DR. BRUCE V. LEE, PROFESSOR OF HEALTH POLICY, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: It's not an insignificant percentage of antibiotics and also things like heparin are imported from countries like China.
LU STOUT (voice-over): Along with antibiotics like amoxicillin, blood pressure medications like ARBs, and pain relievers like ibuprofen, all are medications that medical experts say are often traced to China.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: There's going to be a tariff wall put up.
LU STOUT (voice-over): That's a major vulnerability as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to impose tariffs on imported medicines in a bid to move more drug manufacturing back to America.
TRUMP: We don't make our own drugs anymore. The drug companies are in Ireland and they're in lots of other places, China.
LU STOUT (voice-over): As the world's factory, China has dominated the global drug supply chain in the production of the chemical compounds for active ingredients and the ingredients themselves.
Hong Kong University Professor Qingpeng Zhang has identified the factors behind China's dominance, including a government policy that puts a strategic focus on advanced biotechnology through nurturing top stem talent and building a robust pharma supply chain.
QINGPENG ZHANG, PROF, DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACOLOGY AND PHARMACY, UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG: It's also super expensive and costly to try to reshape this very well established global supply chain. So you may take five to 10 years and a very high cost to actually to manufacture those generic drugs in the US.
LU STOUT (voice-over): To be clear, China has made no threat about weaponizing the supply chain. But one Tsinghua University professor has suggested China could use its quote, leverage to intentionally limit drug supplies to the US.
LEE: If there is a cutoff in terms of the actual supply from China or from any other country for that matter, that actively supplies medications to the United States, you could see shortages.
ZHANG: It is a moral obligation because this actually directly linked to people's lives, to patients' lives. And on the other hand, it is also very, I mean, currently is very profitable.
LU STOUT (voice-over): So far, pharmaceutical products have been spared from Trump's tariffs.
LU STOUT: Now amoxicillin is already in short supply with only one manufacturer in the United States. Whether Beijing pulls the trigger or not, it is a choke point that China is holding over the U.S. Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.
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CHURCH: The U.S. says it's putting on a maximum pressure campaign in nuclear talks with Iran. But Iran accuses the U.S. of constantly moving the goalposts. We'll explain.
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CHURCH: Iran's president says his country will not yield to the Trump administration's demands that it dismantle its nuclear program. President Masoud Pezeshkian says he will, quote, "not compromise on our scientific expert and nuclear rights in any way".
The United States is pushing for a new nuclear deal with Iran, a deal which Tehran has called incoherent and disjointed.
[01:34:50]
CHURCH: Still, a U.S. State Department spokesperson says the White House is not backing down on its demands.
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TAMMY BRUCE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: The fact is, President Trump tweeted that there is going to be no uranium enrichment. The maximum pressure campaign on Iran remains in full force.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: CNN's Fred Pleitgen brings us the latest on the nuclear talks and where they stand right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Momentum appears to be fading in the nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and the Iranians.
As a senior Iranian official has described to CNN the first proposal that was put forward by the Trump administration seeking to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief as both incoherent and disjointed.
And essentially, there are two things that the Iranians have an issue with. One of them is the mixed messaging that they're feeling that they've been getting from the Trump administration where on the one hand, they have discussions, they say, behind closed doors where certain things are then said. And then other things are messaged to the public in a very different way.
One of the people that they do have an issue -- an issue with is Steve Witkoff, the negotiator for President Trump, where they said that some of the statements that he has made in the past, saying that Iran is not allowed to have any nuclear enrichment at all, that for them, that is indeed a red line.
Of course, President Trump himself has come forward on the Truth Social network and also said that there would be no nuclear enrichment by Iran under a deal including the Trump administration.
Now, the Iranians say that for them, nuclear enrichment is an absolute red line. It's a technology that they say they have developed. It's a technology that they say they have sacrificed for. And it's also a technology that they say they have a right to have, and certainly not something that they're willing to give up.
Now, CNN has also learned that part of this proposal could actually see the United States investing in Iran's civilian nuclear program and creating a sort of consortium involving the U.S., involving some Middle Eastern countries, but also involving the International Atomic Energy Agency that would oversee nuclear enrichment that could happen on Iranian territory.
But the Iranians are saying that for them, the technology needs to be completely in their hands. It's something that they say that they're not willing to walk back on.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
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CHURCH: The U.S. State Department has revoked the visas for the family of the suspect in Sunday's attack in Colorado. The White House says the man's wife and five children are now in ICE custody and face expedited removal from the U.S.
CNN's Whitney Wild has the latest on the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement says that Mohamed Sabry Soliman planned this attack for a year. At one point, he actually tried to get a gun. He'd taken a concealed carry class. He learned to shoot. And then when he went to purchase this gun, he was denied because he is not a U.S. citizen.
That's when he decided to make Molotov cocktails and what he told law enforcement was that he learned how to make Molotov cocktails, basically by watching videos online.
He waited until one of his five children, his daughter, graduated high school to carry out this attack, and on the day of the attack, he drove to Boulder. He dressed as a gardener to try to get as close as possible to this group, and that's when he threw two Molotov cocktails at this group.
He had 16 more Molotov cocktails he did not detonate. He is now facing a very long list of charges. 16 charges for attempted first degree murder. He is also facing charges for the 16 Molotov cocktails he did not detonate.
He is also facing charges in federal court. He is facing a hate crime charge. The law enforcement at the -- at the federal level and the state level has made very clear that the maximum sentences for these long list of charges that he's facing is, in effect, life behind bars.
I mean, just the state charges alone, if he gets the maximum sentence, is more than 400 years behind bars.
We are also learning more about the victims. One of them is a Holocaust survivor. We now know the total number of victims is 12. And when we last spoke with Boulder police, the latest information on the two victims, there are two victims who remain in the hospital. We don't have much detail beyond that.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: This and other recent anti-Semitic attacks have the American Jewish community on edge.
CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: According to the ADL, 2024 saw the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the organization began tracking them nearly 50 years ago. And there's concern that this trend will continue well into 2025.
In just the last two months alone, we have seen a number of high- profile attacks in the United States targeting Jewish elected officials, diplomats and community events.
On April 12th, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's residence was the target of an arson attack while the governor's family had been gathered at the home to observe the first night of Passover.
[01:39:48]
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): -- that this kind of violence has no place in our society regardless of what motivates it.
GOLODRYGA: Now thankfully, no one was injured in that attack. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case on May 21st. That's when two Israeli embassy staffers, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were shot and killed outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A senseless act of violence took from us two bright lights.
GOLODRYGA: and then Sunday's most recent attack in Boulder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 1325 Pearl Street, the courthouse. There is a male with a blowtorch setting people on fire.
GOLODRYGA: Including a holocaust survivor who had gathered at a weekly community march to honor the hostages in Gaza.
Police say the suspect used a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to set people on fire.
Now, one common theme that all three attacks shared is that the alleged attackers invoked the war in Gaza while they were committing these crimes.
In Pennsylvania, the attacker. Told authorities that he targeted Governor Shapiro because of his perceived stance on the war in Gaza and the treatment of Palestinians.
In the D.C. attack, the suspect reportedly declared --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Free -- free Palestine.
GOLODRYGA: And in Boulder, the attacker shouted "Free Palestine" during his assault. This has raised the alarm within the Jewish community and among security officials in the United States as this trend continues to grow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Still to come, Elon Musk reveals his true feelings about President Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill.
Back with that in just a moment.
[01:41:20]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Elon Musk is sharing how he really feels about President Trumps Big,
Beautiful Bill. He called it, quote, "a disgusting abomination", saying lawmakers who voted for it, quote, "know you did wrong".
In later posts, Musk called for action to fire all politicians who betrayed the American people. President Trump is rallying support in the Senate for the controversial legislation, which is meant to fund his domestic policy agenda.
And according to the White House press secretary, Musk's opinion has not swayed the president's thoughts on the bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn't change the president's opinion. This is one Big, Beautiful Bill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: CNN's Manu Raju has more on the reaction from lawmakers in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now Elon Musk calling the bill a "disgusting abomination" really scrambled the politics on Capitol Hill. Democrats came out cheering Musk's post including Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader who has really been bashing Musk for months.
But at the beginning of his press conference on Tuesday was heralding that post, as well as Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader.
On the other side, Republicans pushing back. John Thune, Senate Majority Leader who's trying to piece together a coalition to push this bill through the Senate, said that he has a difference of opinion with Musk.
And then sharper criticism from Mike Johnson himself, the Speaker of the House, who shepherded this bill through his chamber and said that he spoke with Musk at length about what Johnson sees as the virtues of the bill just on Monday.
But when the Musk came out criticizing this on Tuesday, Johnson fired back and also suggested that Musk's concern was driven in part by the fact that electric vehicle tax incentives would be eliminated from this bill. And of course, Musk owns Tesla.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Elon is missing it, ok. And it's not personal. I know that the EV mandate is very important to him. That is going away because the government should not be subsidizing these things.
But for him to come out and pan the whole bill is to me, just very disappointing, very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday.
RAJU: Now I asked Johnson whether or not he was accusing Musk of attacking this bill simply because of his own business interests and Johnson would not go that far. He said he'll let others draw that conclusion.
However, there are other Republican senators who share some of Musk's concerns about the impact that this bill could have on debt and deficits, including Senator John Curtis of Utah, who I asked about the projection that the House bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, could raise the national deficit by trillions of dollars, almost $4 trillion, over the next several years.
He said he was greatly concerned by that conclusion.
SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): If you look at the house bill, just to simplify it a little bit, we're going to spend in the next ten years about $20 trillion more than the revenue we bring in, and they're cutting $1.5 trillion out of 20 trillion.
Most of us wouldn't do that in our businesses, in our homes. And we certainly don't do it in the state of Utah. And so that's a big concern to me.
RAJU: Now John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, and other top Republicans who support this bill say that economic growth will lead to more revenue coming into the government. And they contend that the deficit projections won't be as bad as what that nonpartisan scorekeeper Congressional Budget Office found.
But ultimately, it will be up to Thune to try to limit GOP defections in the Senate to just three in order to get this across the finish line. And Thune wants this on President Trump's desk by July 4th.
Manu Raju, CNN -- Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Much has been made about the impact A.I. will have on jobs, the economy and our daily lives.
[01:49:44]
CHURCH: In an interview with CNN's Anna Stewart, the CEO of Google's DeepMind spoke about the fears and hopes for the revolutionary technology.
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ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just last week, the CEO of Anthropic warned that half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could be wiped out in the next one to five years.
Well, I sat down with Google's DeepMind CEO, Sir Demis Hassabis at the South by Southwest conference in London and asked if he agreed with that sort of job-pocalyptic view. DEMIS HASSABIS, CEO, DEEPMIND: No, I don't. I don't know -- I think my view is that what we know for sure is there is going to be huge change, and in the past, when this has happened, industrial revolution, Internet era, it is going to be at least of that magnitude advent of --
STEWART: In a shorter period of time.
HASSABIS: Shorter period of time and it may be a bigger, bigger change than that.
These tools initially will be incredible enhancers for productivity. So people using these tools for their creativity and other things will be almost superhuman in their capabilities in the next five, ten years.
But then beyond that you know, we may need things like universal high income or some way of distributing all the additional productivity, that A.I. will produce in the economy.
STEWART: He had a more optimistic view on jobs. But there are other risks that concern him. especially if AGI is achieved, that human level Artificial General Intelligence.
Now the top two, he says, are one, bad actors repurposing AGI for harmful ends; and two, retaining control of the A.I. itself as it reaches new levels of autonomy.
AGI is the ultimate goal for Sir Demis and his team, and it has been long before Google acquired DeepMind in 2014. The company has a huge breadth of A.I. projects. You may know its large language model called Gemini, but it also has projects in coding, drug discovery and science.
Sir Demis was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry just last year, and more recently they've been working on multimodal A.I. like Project Astra and A.I. video generation with VO3. And each project is picked with purpose.
HASSABIS: The North Star is cracking this General Intelligence and then using it for scientific understanding. So everything that feeds into that is something that we will attempt to do.
STEWART: And Google will be first?
HASSABIS: I hope so. That's the idea. But the most important thing is to make sure it's done responsibly for humanity given what's at stake.
STEWART: Well, Sir Demis says AGI is 5 to 10 years away, but the heads of Anthropic and OpenAI have shorter time frames. It feels a bit like a race. It's a big engineering challenge. But Sir Demis says it's perhaps an even bigger policymaking challenge and creating guardrails matters.
Who achieves AGI, where in the world that is, and how its deployed may determine whether AGI brings about a utopia or dystopia. Anna Stewart, CNN -- London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And we'll be right back.
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CHURCH: Welcome back everyone.
On Africa's southern tip, an ecological hotspot thrives in the ashes of fire. The Cape Floral Kingdom in South Africa needs wildfires to survive, bearing plants that will only bloom after a strong burn.
Here's Puleng Stewart.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This area that we're in is one of the most spectacular and special parts of the world in terms of biodiversity.
[01:54:49]
PULENG STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the southern tip of Africa lies one of the most extraordinary ecosystems on earth, the Cape Floral Kingdom.
Roughly the size of Portugal and recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, it holds more plant species than Europe, with two- thirds found nowhere else on the planet.
SEAN PRIVETT, CONSERVATION DIRECTOR, GROOTBOS FOUNDATION: I always say if there was an Olympic games for biodiversity, we would definitely win gold.
P. STEWART: From spectacular blooming proteas to the tiniest wildflowers, much of fynbos which covers this landscape depends on nature's rhythms a And one of the most important, fire.
It's the reset the ecosystem needs, especially for smaller plants that only emerge after the flames have passed.
SHILUVA KHOSA, GUIDE: So fynbos is a fire-driven ecosystem. It needs fire to thrive. So time to time, every 10 to 15 years we select the block and then we burn that block. We're standing on a fire break right now.
LEON KLUGE, LANDSCAPE GARDENER: You need that fire to come through to put back all the nutrients that's been absorbed by these massive trees, back into the soil for all the babies to sprout again.
And in here you can see how many little leucadendron (ph) or this protea family is already coming up everywhere.
So it's a quite exciting time for a botanist or somebody that's enthusiastic about plants to come and see the orchids and bulbs and little annuals that sprout every 15 years only after a fire.
KHOSA: They hold on to their seeds waiting for the fire. And then when they feel that heat, that's when they release the seeds. And then to germinate, they require that heat from fire and also the chemical reaction from smoke.
So it is very important that we do ecological burns in the fynbos.
PRIVETT: It's quite extraordinary. Makes it very exciting as a botanist because you're never done.
I'm still -- I'm always excited when I go out into the mountains different times of the year, different seasons. After fire, things come up that you haven't seen before.
We found six new species for science. It really is a very, very special part of the world.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Beautiful.
Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church.
CNN NEWSROOM continues next with Christina Macfarlane in London after a quick break.
[01:57:16]
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