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Two Israeli Embassy Staffers Killed in D.C. Shooting; Soon: House to Vote on Trump Agenda after All-Night Session; What Could the 'Diddy' Trial Force Hip-Hop to Address? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 22, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "And we don't even have a backup system in place." The controller said, "We are running normal operations pretending everything is OK, and it's not. This is a very unsafe operation."

[06:00:12]

MUNTEAN: The bottom line here is that these failures will mean delays. The FAA said, in response to our reporting, that when equipment issues happen, the agency has no choice but to slow flights to keep things safe.

It's not good news for travelers. With the summer rush about to start, the TSA just said it will screen about 18 million people at airports nationwide over the next week.

On Wednesday, the head of nine U.S. airlines wrote an open letter to Congress, pleading with them to fund the air traffic control upgrades that the Trump administration wants.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking news coverage continues right now with CNN THIS MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: We are following two major breaking news stories out of the nation's capital this morning.

Overnight, two Israeli embassy staffers gunned down outside a Jewish museum. A suspect now under arrest.

And on Capitol Hill, another all-nighter for lawmakers as House Republicans attempt to pass the president's agenda.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me on this very busy Thursday morning.

I want to start with that deadly shooting on the streets of the nation's capital.

So, this happened last night as two Israeli embassy staffers were leaving the Capital Jewish Museum. Police say a man was seen pacing back and forth prior to approaching, and then he opened fire.

Police have identified the suspect as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago. Video obtained by CNN shows the moment of his arrest. He was chanting "Free, free Palestine."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIAS RODRIGUEZ, SHOOTING SUSPECT: Free, free Palestine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's from Hamas.

RODRIGUEZ: Free, free Palestine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's from Hamas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: There was an eyewitness who told CNN about her interaction with the suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAIGE SIEGEL, WITNESS AT THE SCENE (via phone): I say, "Do you know where you are?" And he doesn't say anything. And I say, "You're at, like, a Jewish museum."

And immediately, he takes a few steps back, and he starts yelling, "I did it! I did it!" Talking about shooting and killing the innocent people outside who had just attended the event, who had just left.

And he's screaming, "I did it! I did it! I did it for Gaza. I did it for Palestine. Free Palestine."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So right now, CNN also learning new information about the victims. This morning, the embassy posted a photo of them. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said they were a couple about to be engaged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YECHIEL LEITER, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: The couple that was gunned down tonight in the name of free Palestine is a young couple about to be engaged. The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Israel's president reacting to the news overnight, saying in part, "I'm devastated by the scenes in Washington, D.C. This is a despicable act of hatred, of antisemitism."

President Trump sending his condolences to the victims' families and going on to say, "Hatred and radicalism have no place in the U.S.A."

Joining me now, former assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security and CNN senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, thanks for being with us this morning.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: Right now, the FBI is assisting in the case. I want to listen to a minute to the assistant director in charge.

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STEVEN JENSEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-IN-CHARGE, FBI WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE: Tonight, a heinous crime was committed, and the FBI stands with the Metropolitan Police Department to help not only investigate the homicide and provide support, but also to look into ties to potential terrorism or motivation based on a bias based crime or a hate crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, let's talk about that. We played tape earlier of the suspect yelling, "Free Palestine." Talk about how -- how law enforcement assesses the hate crime or terrorism aspect of this.

KAYYEM: Yes. And this is, you know, sort of early obviously, in this horrible, essentially assassination from what we can tell. And so, there's going to be two pieces to it. This is, of course, a homicide in the streets of D.C. or outside the museum. So, the Washington police are going to be investigating it as such.

Things like, how did he get to D.C.? Why did he choose this place? Was it a public event?

I was in contact with people who had been in the event last night. It was for young professionals, with about 30 people -- 30 different diplomatic offices represented. So, it wasn't just an Israeli hosted thing.

And it wasn't exactly public, right? People would know it was going on if they looked for it. So, you want to know, how did he know about this event?

[06:05:03]

The other piece, of course, is the piece that we can't deny, which is obviously the suspect said, "Free Palestine." He -- he killed two Israelis. There may be either a hate crime or a federal crime, of course.

And then the fears or the concerns that there's an international nexus. Both of those things will have to be investigated because we don't know much about this suspect. Why did he leave Chicago? Why did he pick this place? Was he

radicalized and how? So that's going to be the two different pieces. They'll merge once we have, you know, once these -- these pieces are put together and there's a theory of the case that can be made in court you know, what we're hearing now, now has to be proved to bring the federal nexus aspects to it.

CORNISH: So, that's what's going on with the suspect, with the investigation.

I also want to talk about what this means for Jewish communities, which, of course, are going to be on high alert. Here's what the mayor of D.C. said last night.

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MURIEL BOWSER (D), WASHINGTON, D.C. MAYOR: We have a long history in a lot of practice in our city of working with Jewish organizations around safety and around protection. We'll be talking to all of our organizations, from schools to synagogues to other organizations, to make sure that we are supporting in every way that we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Should there, or is there -- any kind of concern about copycats at this point?

KAYYEM: Absolutely. Mayor Bowser is talking about a pretty sophisticated system in which Jewish communities, Jewish sites, synagogues, are given grants and training and programs to protect themselves in in this heightened environment of antisemitism and attacks on the Jewish community.

Those will be ratcheted up, one can assume, not just in D.C., but around the country as -- as there are events that are of concern. There are schools, there are synagogues. Friday is the sabbath. Tomorrow is the sabbath. So, I think you will see that sort of leaning in by local authorities to protect these organizations and institutions in synagogues.

They also all have generally have private security. There's some reporting from last night that is actually was private security that engaged the gunman after he had killed the two innocent Israeli diplomats.

So, all of that will be ratcheted up.

But, look, I mean, there's a specific incident, and then there's the environment were in, and you cannot separate the fears that this will ripple through the Jewish community, given the heightened antisemitism in this country and the concerns that anyone could be a target.

So, in that sense, there's -- there's -- it's harder to protect yourself from because it's just -- it's a well-grounded feeling of a sense of being targeted. And what happened last night just confirmed that feeling, that

cowardly act of thinking that you -- you -- you know, are representing some cause, and you kill innocent diplomats. That's -- that's something that's going to have ripple effects throughout the -- the Jewish community.

I just want to add one thing. It is exceptionally rare. Take the -- take the specific politics of Israel and Palestine out of this. It is exceptionally rare for there to be attacks on international diplomats in this country.

I was just looking at my -- my notes. You know, there's -- in the '70s and '80s a Turkish consulate, a Chilean consulate. This is not -- this is -- this is a brutal act. And also, the international national security implications for not just Israeli diplomats, but for the diplomatic corps that that calls D.C. home.

So, you're also going to see, I believe, sort of ratcheting up in terms of safety and security for the overall diplomatic community.

If Americans believe that they can solve international crises through assassination, that is very -- that's a very scary place to be for Israel and for the diplomatic community here.

CORNISH: Yes. And we're already hearing about Israel tightening security at its diplomatic stations around the world. Juliette Kayyem, CNN senior national security analyst. Thank you.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the other breaking news we're following. Another all-night push on Capitol Hill. This is a live look right now at House Republicans, still trying to get the president's bill across the finish line.

Plus, why attorneys for the Idaho murder suspect accused of killing four college students want more time.

And there was a dramatic turn in the Oval Office when President Trump repeated false claims about white genocide to South Africa's leader.

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JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY KIMMEL": Things got pretty heated, and the president of South Africa actually said, "I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you."

[06:10:05]

And then to mess with Trump even more, he gave him tickets to see a Springsteen concert in New Jersey.

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CORNISH: This morning, the House is wrapping up after an all-nighter as Republicans look to push through President Trump's agenda.

So, right now, were looking at House Speaker Mike Johnson. House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries actually just finished.

And they're speaking at the tail end of a debate of an effort to delay the legislation.

The bill does, however, appear to be on track to eventually pass. Most of the hardline conservatives who were threatening to tank it allowed the bill to proceed to a floor -- to this floor final vote.

[06:15:05]

They were worried it didn't cut enough of the national debt, but just one Republican congressman spoke out on the House floor against it.

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REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): We're going to rack up, the authors say, $20 trillion of new debt over the next ten years. I'm telling you, it's closer to $30 trillion of new debt in the next ten years.

Mr. Speaker, we're not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight. We're putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat: Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter; Ameshia Cross, Democratic strategist; and Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. Welcome to all of you.

I want to talk about this bill. And we played Massie, not because he is a movable object. He will -- he will never be convinced.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: He's also a resistible force within the GOP.

CORNISH: Exactly. In any context. However, he is the one who talks about the math of this. So, Doug, talk about how people got over the math.

HEYE: The math is pretty simple, how they got over it. Donald Trump went to the House Republican conference. They met earlier than they used to do, partially because of the timeline that they're in.

And then he got on the phone and brought members to the White House, and he worked them individually.

Republicans were always going to get there. The question was of how and what that process was that we've all seen play out. The, you know, overnight rules meeting. I don't recall a rules meeting ever happening -- a Rules Committee meeting. Real process nerd talk. I don't recall one of those ever going on all night before. We haven't really seen Sunday sessions the way -- Sunday votes, the way that we have.

CORNISH: Yes. Which, was that pressure? And you've been in this world, as well. Was that pressure like you explain to your coworkers why you're here on a Sunday? Or was that, like, we're getting this done? We're getting things done.

HEYE: We're getting this done. Because we have artificial timelines and real timelines.

CORNISH: Yes.

HEYE: We're coming up on Memorial Day. So, the speaker was nervous. You know, he's speaking now. They're going to have the vote. And then they're going to adjourn, because we have Memorial Day weekend.

The speaker was nervous that if this went to this afternoon, certainly tomorrow, that Republican members might start leaving and going home, and then they'd have a real math problem.

CORNISH: Yes, yes.

AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that that's true. There was a very real timeline, but there was also the speaker and moreover, the president not trying to leave with egg on their face.

When you have the White House, and he's supposed to be the biggest dealmaker. The idea is that I have to whip these, because I think that there was a lack of certain amount of strength from the speaker.

So, he went in and had several individual meetings, tried to push people as far as he could, trying to get that -- trying to get that vote before the break. They were up against that and obviously losing -- losing votes based on people going home was of intense concern.

CORNISH: Which is real, folks. Don't underestimate a lawmaker's interest in going home ahead of a holiday.

Stephen, you know, I want to turn to you, because the president has done so much, quote, "on his own" through executive orders. But this is where the rubber meets the road on, like, codifying the things that he wants. What do you see in how this debate is playing out?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: I think there's two really interesting things about this.

The first one is how this bill kind of cuts through the MAGA, the coalition, and what it tells us about the Republican Party.

You've got the traditional Republican tax cutting part of this bill, which seems to benefit Americans who are better off. But there are some provisions in this, some of Trump's tax things that he talked about in the campaign -- no tax on tips, et cetera -- that are much more populist, aimed at the working class. The question is, where does that balance sit?

CORNISH: Right. The reality of it.

COLLINSON: And that'll be played out when it gets to the Senate. The other thing that's really interesting, I think, is that, you know,

we heard a lot of talk about should the Republicans do this in one big, beautiful bill or keep sending bills to the president's desk?

The process here seems to suggest that, you know, they may only be able to get one big, beautiful bill through this.

CORNISH: Yes, the reality of the politics.

COLLINSON: Vote-thin majority. And it shows probably that this was the right tactical decision, to push everything -- immigration, tax and everything else -- into one bill.

CORNISH: Yes.

CROSS: You're also looking at the midterm calendar, and they're trying to move things as fast away from that as possible. Because a lot of the -- a lot of the cuts here are quite steep. When we're talking about Medicaid, and we're talking about the extensions that they're going to have to do in Medicare, as well. When we're looking at the changes to Food Stamps, when we're looking at the potential elimination of millions of people from the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

CORNISH: Yes. The Memorial Day weekend, it's not -- there's not some official rule. Like, this is a self-imposed deadline.

We're watching right now -- as we said, they're on the House floor live -- to see if they meet it.

Group chat, stick around. We're going to talk more later.

Next on CNN THIS MORNING, the Jewish community right now in mourning after two people who worked for the Israeli embassy were killed near the Capital Jewish Museum. We're actually going to be joined by the CEO of the organization that was hosting an event there, where those two staffers were.

We're also going to talk about the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial that's rocking the hip-hop world. What this case could force in terms of the music industry confronting issues of abuse going forward.

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CORNISH: The Diddy trial is raising some uncomfortable questions for hip-hop about power, silence, and accountability in the industry. Questions like how one man became so powerful that he was able to avoid scrutiny for so long.

What did the music industry know about Sean "Diddy" Combs, and did it choose to look away?

I want to get into all this this week on our episode of "The Assignment." That's where I spoke with the music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy about what this trial could actually force hip-hop to reckon with.

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SOWMYA KRISHNAMURTHY, MUSIC JOURNALIST: I would urge people, whether it be fans or artists, the industry, to -- to go deeper than that, because this case truly could be a watershed in how we deal with power dynamics, #MeToo, the treatment of women. But it really is up to --

CORNISH: Oh, stop, wait, wait a second. Go into that more, because when I look at hip-hop, it has been very, very resistant to this conversation.

KRISHNAMURTHY: Yes, I mean it. I like to say that when I was a kid, there were more women in power in hip-hop than there are now. And this is across the board from the media executives at record labels, decision makers, managers.

We are in a -- in many cases, I would say like a crisis moment, not just in hip-hop but in society of how we talk about misogyny, toxic -- toxic masculinity.

Those are things that are at an all-time high, and culture is very interconnected. So as a society, if certain things are allowed, it's boys will be boys. It's locker room talk. We can't expect it to change in hip-hop.

There has to be either a cultural reason to change from a larger scale, or financial reason.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: We're going to dig into that a little bit deeper. I'm bringing back my friend, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.

Elliot, I wanted to talk to you about this, because our conversation was about power, how he had reached the cultural heights and all that came with it.

And I noticed that with the court, they're trying to prove that he was, like, the head of a criminal enterprise. So, help me understand, was he powerful or not? What in the legal community does that really mean?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's like, stop. You're both right.

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Yes. He was certainly powerful. Now the question --

CORNISH: Security guards, like there's the world of people who worked for him.

WILLIAMS: And also, attempting to assert control over those around him, at least as the allegations suggest. Now, no one's disputing some of these acts of violence. No one is

disputing the acts of sex. No one's really disputing the drugs. The evidence is there.

The question is, how is that all going to be linked together, you know, toward this notion of a criminal enterprise? That, to me, isn't entirely clear yet.

But I think what is clear are the things that we talked about. It's yes, he's -- he appears to have been quite abusive with partners and enjoyed these somewhat avant-garde sex parties or whatever else.

But getting to that next step, it may not be there yet. Now, I say "yet" very importantly, because this is an eight-week trial, and who knows what else they call to establish this pattern of conduct.

CORNISH: We heard from one of Sean Combs's ex-assistants yesterday. Do you know who else we're expecting to hear from and how that could kind of impact the things we're talking about?

WILLIAMS: Exactly. So, Kid Cudi, a rapper --

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- who -- who had been in a romantic relationship with Cassie Ventura. What I find truly fascinating about his testimony is it's not just the mess in the industry or hip-hop he's there to talk about. He's there to talk about arson.

One of the things buried in the indictment is arson. This notion of it's not just sex and drugs and trafficking and so on, but that --

CORNISH: And to clarify for people, the allegation is that his car was blown up --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: -- by a Molotov cocktail.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: And Cudi, at the time, to "The New York Times," confirmed that the allegations were true. It will be interesting what he says on the stand.

WILLIAMS: And moreover, there was testimony at trial that Sean Combs said he was going to burn Kid Cudi's car as a way of sort of getting back at Cassie Ventura.

It's one of those other crimes. And at a certain point, perhaps the jury just buckles under the weight of them, because there's so many of them, allegations of them piling up. Is there a link between all of them under this umbrella of an enterprise?

CORNISH: Elliot, it is going to be fascinating to see how this case unfolds. As always, I appreciate you coming -- WILLIAMS: Great talk.

CORNISH: -- talking legal with me.

You can learn more about this topic. There's a new episode of "The Assignment," and new episodes drop every Thursday.

Up next, the latest breaking developments from a deadly shooting that happened overnight in D.C. It left two Israeli embassy staff members dead.

And another clash in the Oval Office. More on what happened when President Trump put South Africa's leader in the hot seat.

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