Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Harvard Foreign Student Ban; EU Urges Respect After Trump Threatens 50 Percent Tariffs; Memorial Day Travel Set To Break Record; Eighteen Injured In Hamburg Knife Attack As Woman Arrested; Federal Investigators Work To Determine Cause Of Deadly San Diego Plane Crash; Justice Department Moves To Drop Police Reform Agreements With Louisville, Minneapolis. Justice Department Ends Police Reform Agreements in Minneapolis; Russia Strikes Kyiv After First Stage of Major Prisoner Swap; Trump Ramps Up Trade War with Apple, Other Tech Companies and EU. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired May 24, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:00:33]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to CNN This Morning. It's Saturday, May 24th. I'm Victor Blackwell. Here's what we're working on for you this morning.

Another legal blow for the Trump administration, this one with its escalating fight with Harvard University. A judge says the school would suffer irreparable harm if it's forced to stop accepting international students. Of course, you know, this fight is far from over.

There also new details about that deadly crash of a Cessna jet into a neighborhood in San Diego. The NTSB says that the plane had no flight data recorder. Some of the runway lights were out and weather reporting systems was down. We're also hearing what the pilot said just before the crash.

And the Trump administration is ending government oversight of police reforms in several cities, including Minneapolis. And you probably remember that's where George Floyd was killed nearly five years ago. But city leaders say they're committed to seeing those reforms through.

And a seventh person has been arrested for helping those Louisiana inmates escape from jail. Plus, more on the controversial facial recognition software being used to track down the escapees.

All right, we're starting with the Trump administration's education crackdown and hit new snags in the courts. They are asking a federal appeals court to allow their efforts to essentially shut down the Education Department a day earlier.

A judge indefinitely halted those plans and ordered the president to reinstate the employees who were fired en masse earlier this year. Now the appeals court is asking everyone who brought the legal

challenge to respond to the Trump administration's request by tomorrow night.

In addition, another judge paused the administration's international student ban at Harvard University. A conference in the case is set for Tuesday. Now, this crackdown sent students into a panic this week just as a lot of them were about to head back to campus. Despite the pause, students are left with an incredibly tough decision. As CNN's Michael Yoshida explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A federal judge siding with Harvard University Friday in its fight with the Trump administration, temporarily halting a federal ban on the school's ability international students.

LARRY SUMMERS, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: This is extortion. It's a vendetta using all powers of the government because of a political argument with Harvard.

YOSHIDA (voice-over): On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem removed the university student and exchange visitor certification, saying Harvard refused to turn over conduct records of foreign students as requested last month.

KRISTI NOEM, DHS SECRETARY: Harvard brought these consequences upon themselves.

YOSHIDA (voice-over): More than a quarter of students are impacted.

LEO GERDEN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY ITERNATIONAL STUDENT: We are being used essentially as poker chips in a battle between the White House and Harvard and it feels honestly very dehumanizing.

YOSHIDA (voice-over): Trump and university officials have been locked in conflict for months, battling over federal research funds as well as the school's tax exempt status. The White House demanding changes to campus programming policies, hiring and admissions to root out on campus antisemitism and eliminating what it calls racist diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Harvard's going to have to change its ways.

YOSHIDA (voice-over): Harvard has complied with some requests and did acknowledge antisemitism on its campus. Still, it's fiercely defended its academic independence, calling this latest act by the administration a clear retaliation for Harvard's exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government's demands to control Harvard's governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.

In Washington, I'm Michael Yoshida reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, coming up on first of all, at 8, I'll speak with Abdullah Shahid Sial. He's co-president of Harvard's undergraduate student body and an international student from Pakistan. We'll talk about Trump's fight with the school and the fear and uncertainty that international students are facing right now.

All right now let's talk with Spectrum News anchor Errol Louis. Errol, good morning to you.

ERROL LOUIS, SPECTRUM NEWS ANCHOR: Good morning.

BLACKWELL: Talk about the poker chip element that the student talked about there and these students being just used in this continued back and forth between the president and Harvard.

LOUIS: Yes. I can tell you as an alum, Victor, that the students are there to learn.

[06:05:05]

You know, especially the international students. They're coming here to do research, they're coming here to try and help us find a cure for cancer. They're coming to study philosophy and the arts and culture and math and science. They're certainly not here to be kicked back and forth between the university and the White House. It's -- it is very dehumanizing.

I can certainly see them saying, look, this is the chance of a lifetime where -- we're here, you know, they're there for four-year programs, two programs, maybe a year and a half. And to have it derailed by this is really very discouraging.

BLACKWELL: The share of Harvard undergrad students who are international students has increased pretty significantly over the last several years from the '06, '07 academic year, about 19 and a half percent, to the 2024, 2025, more than 27 percent of the students at Harvard international students.

So obviously this has a significant economic impact on the university. And you talked about some of the other impacts. What's the likelihood that this will go through, do you think?

LOUIS: I don't think that the White House is necessarily going to prevail. If you look at how this was done, it was abrupt, it was sloppy. There was no underlying rationale for it, frankly, you know, it really is kind of a power grab. Had they handled things just even a little bit more subtly, they might have a better chance at succeeding in the court.

But the reason they got the injunction almost immediately was not just proof of irreparable harm, but also evidence that they're not necessarily going to prevail on the merits. What are the merits? What is -- was his national security? Was this about the economy? Was this about foreign policy? They had -- Harvard had given over extensive information on something like 7,000 students over a 10-day period. And the White House probably didn't even look at it, but simply said,

that's not enough. We're going to cancel all of their visas. The courts are not going to accept that. I don't think they prevail on the merits.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And you pair this with the decision that I talked about at the top of the show on the Department of Education and the judge saying all those people have to come back to work. I mean, we have covered several of the legal snags and setbacks for the administration, but as it relates to education, would this suggest even a likelihood of a pivot, of a reconsideration from this administration?

LOUIS: No, I don't think so because I think, Victor, that the disruption is the point. What they want is for students to go elsewhere. And you know, I mean, if the university doesn't -- does not cave and this fight continues, what we're going to see is students saying, you know what, maybe I'll go to Cambridge, maybe I'll go to Oxford, you know, maybe I'll end up in Beijing or in Paris rather than coming to the United States.

And of course, education is one of the great draws that we have that brings in high levels of investment, high levels of people who want to make a new life here or start a business here. Look at the major corporations that we have that were started by or are currently run by immigrants. And it's really doing a lot of damage to the American brand.

Again, all because of this ideological fight between the White House and the Ivy League.

BLACKWELL: And that's important because the point you just made is the point that then-candidate running for reelection Donald Trump made in 2024, talking about needing a merit based system for immigration. And he was speaking for certain H1B visas as related to his deportation plan.

Let's turn to tariffs now and the president saying 50 percent tariffs on imports from the EU, 25 percent on Apple, if they don't make their phones, the iPhone in the US. We've talked about this before, but if you're trying to convince a company to shift their manufacturing to the U.S. the climate and the landscape changes so quickly. Who is going to invest eight figures, 9, 10, 11 in moving any of that to the US.

LOUIS: No, no, they can't, Victor. I mean, you're -- in addition to the amount of money that's involved, it takes something like two years to put together the supply chain and the assembly line, say for an automobile. Something comparable would be true for technology companies. Who's going to invest 10 figures and two years on something that could change if the President wakes up in a different mood tomorrow.

So, you know, again, the method creates more problems for this White House than the underlying policy. Of course the White House is entitled to its policy. If they want to slap sales taxes on foreign goods, which is what a tariff is, you want to raise all of these sales taxes, you're entitled to try.

[06:10:00]

But there has to be some kind of conversation with the major industries that are going to be affected by this, and that conversation has not happened.

BLACKWELL: Errol Louis, thanks so much.

Excuse me. Memorial Day marks the unofficial kickoff, the summer one of the busiest travel times of the year. AAA says more than 45 million Americans are driving or flying this holiday weekend. TSA expects to screen about 18 million travelers between now and next week, and that kind of volume is keeping Newark Airport in our focus. It has been under scrutiny for recent staffing shortages and system outages. The FAA ordered airlines to trim the number of flights there this week in an effort to avoid major delays.

The roads will be busy, too. About 39 million people are expected to drive this holiday weekend. The good news here, according to GasBuddy.com the national average for a regular gallon, $3.18, well below last year's prices of 3.62.

Whether you're driving or flying, experts recommend giving yourself plenty of time to get your to the destination safely.

CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now with a look at the --

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Victor, if this stubborn nor' Easter we've had swirling across New England lately, we're in the middle of February. We'd be talking about a foot of snow in some of the coastal cities. But of course it's the end of May. So that's not the case. Just a stubborn cool rain that continues through the course of the day today for places like Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, even into portions of New Hampshire, Vermont, even upstate New York, potentially seeing these on and off again showers through this long Memorial Day weekend.

This will keep in cool and cloudy conditions through at least Sunday. So plan ahead. Maybe dust off that coat you already packed away for the winter. And look, you can see temperatures there, rather cool, well below normal for many locations across the Northeast.

Want to give you a heads up, too on a heavy rainfall event that we're tracking throughout the Ozarks and as well as the Central and Southern Plains. Look at the forecast rainfall totals going forward. This takes you right through Monday, Memorial Day. And you could see some of the heavier rainfall here, anywhere from 4 to 6 inches of rain locally. So that's a half a foot of precipitation expected through the next coming days. That will certainly impact your extended holiday weekend plans.

And of course, with all of the turbulent weather moving through the eastern two thirds of the country, this will keep the cooler than average temperatures in place for basically east of Denver all the way to the nation's Capital. Here's a look at those three day forecasts taking you right through the day on Monday. Enjoy temperatures in the middle 70s for D.C. Back to you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Derek, thank you very much. Still to come, investigators are clearing debris from the San Diego neighborhood where a plane crashed this week. More on the recovery efforts and what we're hearing from the NTSB about the crash.

Plus, this weekend marks five years since a police officer murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis. We'll take a look at the state of police reform in the US.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:57]

BLACKWELL: Eighteen people were injured, including four critically in a knife attack at the main railway station in Hamburg, Germany on Friday. Police arrested a 39-year-old German woman for the stabbing. She'll be in court today. Authorities believe the woman acted alone and said the attacker had indiscriminately stabbed people, injuring some of them critically.

Investigators said they're not assuming any political motivation to the attack, but are looking into whether she -- the suspect rather was in a state of mental distress.

A popular Mexican singer has canceled a sold out show tonight in Texas. He says the U.S. revoked his visa to enter the country. Nearly 50,000 fans bought tickets for Julion Alvarez's show in Arlington night, but the show promoter announced last night it has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances and that Alvarez could not enter the U.S. in time for the event.

The show's promoter said they are working with Alvarez's team to reschedule the concert. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the case, telling CNN that visa records are confidential.

A court in Paris has found the ringleader and seven other people guilty of the 2016 armed robbery of Kim Kardashian. Now the sentences range from three to eight years in prison, but the judge suspended portions of their sentences due to the advanced age of those convicted.

All of those found guilty will walk free due to time already served. Kim Kardashian said in a statement that she was deeply grateful to the French authorities for pursuing justice in this case.

We're getting new details in the investigation of that small plane that crashed into a San Diego neighborhood. Several people on the plane were killed and several others on the ground were hurt.

Investigators determined that plane did not have a flight data recorder on board, but they are still looking for a cockpit voice recorder. The investigation also revealed that some of the critical runway lighting systems at the airport were out at the time of the crash. CNN's Pete Muntean has the latest for us. Pete?

[06:20:05]

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVAITION CORRESPONDENT: Victor, the facts of this case are getting more disturbing all the time. The NTSB confirmed Friday that parts of the runway lighting at the airport were out. That would have made it even harder for the pilot to find the runway in the dark in poor weather. Air traffic control told the pilot of low clouds and bad visibility from fog. But that was the report from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. A few miles away from the point of intended landing, Montgomery Gibbs Executive Airport.

The weather reporting system there had been out of order for two nights. So the pilot was coming into land at an airport where he had no idea of the actual conditions. This is what air traffic control told the pilot.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For 0955 Zulu with wind calm, visibility one half and indefinite ceiling 200.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, that doesn't sound great, but we'll give it a go.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The pilot was flying something called an instrument approach. That's a path published by the FAA so flights can descend through clouds to make a landing. Approaches have limits on how low you can get without seeing the runway. This approach says you can't go below 673 feet. You never ever go below that because there's no guarantee you can avoid the ground.

The preliminary flight tracking data says this flight descended to 500ft. So more than 150ft below the legal lowest altitude. We don't know why the pilot was that low. There wasn't a flight data recorder in the plane. The NTSB is hoping there was a cockpit voice recorder installed and investigators say there may have been one installed in the airplane in the past. It would hold some key clues as this investigation is just beginning. Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, still lots of questions. Pete Muntean, thank you for that report.

The killing of George Floyd put Minneapolis at the center of the police reform debate in the US. Well, now city leaders warn the end of federal oversight could endanger progress made since his death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:27]

BLACKWELL: The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked global protests. It also led to federal oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department. Five years later, those reforms are set to end at least the oversight. The Trump administration filed a motion this week to halt police

reforms deals known as the consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville. Now, the Minneapolis mayor says that the work will go on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JACOB FREY (D) MINNEAPOLIS: We will make sure that we are moving forward with every sentence of every paragraph of both the settlement around the Minnesota Department of Human Rights as well as the consent decree. The bottom line is people should expect us to do this work. People have been demanding for years that we do this work and we're not going to let them down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Michelle Gross is with Communities United Against Police Brutality. That's an organization that worked to educate people in Minneapolis on consent decree. The mayor says that reforms will continue. What's your confidence that it will, Michelle?

MICHELLE GROSS, COMMUNITIES UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY: You know, we always have to make sure that the city does what they say they're going to do. Unfortunately, our city has a history of sort of checking the box on things and that's the situation that led to Mr. Floyd being killed and frankly, others since then.

And so we don't have a lot of confidence that they'll do it on their own. But it's our intention to make sure that we satisfy the demands of the community by making sure that the actual changes happen. And so we will make sure the community is at the table.

BLACKWELL: The co-lead of the monitoring agency that is tracking the progress there, Effective Law Enforcement for All released its semiannual report, and this is largely in part to the state consent decree, but they said this as part of the executive summary. The city and the Minneapolis Police Department have made more progress toward building a foundation for sustainable reform in the year of monitoring than nearly any other jurisdiction.

What's your reaction to that and what are you hearing from residents?

GROSS: I would say that we disagree with that assessment and that if anything, is probably an indictment of the other locations because we are grossly behind the first year achievements and we're almost at the second year of the consent decree. And for them to say that we've, you know, made these wonderful progress, I don't agree with that. There are many things that still need to be done, and I think that the changes are happening glacially slow. Much slower to me.

BKACLWELL: What are the ones that you're most concerned about that didn't happen at the year one mark?

GROSS: Well, one of the things that we have seen is that what the police and the city are saying is happening isn't reflected in the streets. We still have officers searching people without, you know, justifiable cause. We're dealing with an incident where law enforcement broke into a woman's house in the middle of the night over an escaped dog and terrorize that family, you know, two in the morning without any legal basis.

We have people that are being injured still by police, and then the police are telling them if you say you're injured, then you know, we're going to have to take you to jail and these kinds of nonsense things. We also see a lot of ongoing racial disparities in traffic stops and in stops and searches.

So we're not seeing, you know, the kind of progress of the street that the city is trying to claim is happening.

BLACKWELL: So as I mentioned, there is the, or was the federal consent decree. There's also the state consent decree as part of this Minnesota Department of Human Rights. And there are some differences as you're talking about things you're not seeing.

One of them is, I guess the authority or the teeth behind a civilian oversight board. Now, that there's no federal consent decree, what's the difference between what one would have offered and the other?

GROSS: Well, the state consent decree can only enforce the Minnesota Human Rights Act. So, there are several areas outside of the Minnesota Human Rights Act that the federal government would have helped with things like off-duty work, better mental health responses, just a whole list of things, better responses to interactions with youth, a long list of areas that were much better in the DOJ consent decree.

And I have to tell you, we're really disappointed because most of the community spent a lot of time getting this federal consent decree. In fact, it was our organization that wrote the letter that got them here. And then, we spent a great deal of time assisting with their investigation. So, of course, we're very distressed that it's not going to happen.

But that doesn't mean we're going to give up. We are going to use that as a tool to make the city make the changes we want them to make.

BLACKWELL: Michel, you mentioned something I found in researching and preparing for this conversation, pretty fascinating that we don't talk enough about, but could have some really significant implications. And that's the off-duty work element, that in this federal consent decree, it made it a prohibited, a patrolman who does like off-duty security from assigning jobs to their supervisors. So, explain why --

GROSS: Yes --

BLACKWELL: That is so important.

GROSS: Off duty work is an incredibly corrupting force. Derek Chauvin was in charge of off duty for the third precinct. And basically, you know, when someone controls your income or a significant portion of your income, you're not going to tell them, get your knee off this person's neck, stop doing what you're doing and things like that, because you're not going to anger the person that controls a big part of your income. So, in our city, off-duty work is decentralized to the different

precincts. The first thing that happened in the New Orleans consent decree was that they got rid of that nonsense. They centralized off- duty work under the city's oversight. And that is very important again for the -- because it's a corrupting force when it's handled by private officers.

The other thing that happens is that we don't then have any control of how much work people are doing. You know, literally, a number of the really bad incidents that have happened here happened after somebody was on their -- you know, second or third shift in a row from working long hours, from having off-duty and then going and working their regular Minneapolis police job.

And there's no reason for it. The city should control it. Listen to our officers start -- their starting salary is 93,000 a year. You know, why do they need all this extra off-duty work where they're literally taking cash and sticking it in their pockets while using our equipment, our squad cars, our uniforms, everything. It just doesn't make sense and we need to address that corruption.

And it is a corruption, and it --

BLACKWELL: Yes --

GROSS: Leads to bad things like Derek Chauvin having, you know, impunity in the street.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I'm not so much going to go into somebody's pocket and talk about how much money they should make. But I think the point of a patrolman, controlling how much their superior makes and that having some influence on how far are you going to go in jeopardizing my good name in this department when I could either give or not give this opportunity for you to make more money.

I think that's an important one. Michelle Gross, thank you so much for being with us this morning to have the conversation. Coming up on first of all, I'll speak with Terrence Floyd, George Floyd's brother about the ongoing fight for police reform and how they're honoring Floyd's memory this weekend.

All right, major developments out of Ukraine where Russia has launched a massive drone and missile attack overnight just hours after a major prisoner exchange. Could the attacks stop the next round of prisoner swaps?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:00]

BLACKWELL: Breaking overnight in Russia's war on Ukraine. Officials say at least 13 people are dead, more than 50 are injured across Ukraine as Russia unleashed powerful drone and missile strikes in the last 24 hours. The attacks happened right after the first stage of a prisoner swap had been completed. Let's go now to CNN's correspondent, Paula Hancocks. Paula, it seems

like every weekend, we're talking about this increased drone campaign from Russia. Tell us about this one.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, it certainly was a terrifying night for many across Ukraine.

[06:40:00]

We heard from the leader, Zelenskyy saying that it was a difficult night for all of Ukraine, pointing out that there were some 250-strike drones, 14 ballistic missiles that were hitting about well over half a dozen different regions across the country. So, over the past 24 hours, 13 have been killed, and we know that in the capital itself, many of those drones and missiles were intercepted.

But of course, the ones that did get through were deadly across the country. As you say, Victor, though, it does come at the same time as we're seeing what is potentially going to be the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine since the war started in February 2022. We could potentially be seeing some 2,000 people being exchanged, 1,000 from each side.

Now, we did see the first stage on Friday, according to President Zelenskyy, some 390 military and civilians did arrive back in Ukraine. We saw them having very emotional reunions draped in the Ukrainian flag. Let's listen to the Ukrainian leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT, UKRAINE (through translator): The main thing of today is that the exchange took place. This is the first stage of the largest exchange that was agreed upon in Turkey. It was the only significant result of the meeting in Turkey. And the Russians are blocking everything else. They are blocking it for now.

But the return of our people is exactly what we're always working for. We will definitely return everyone, every one of our citizens, every Ukrainian, military and civilian, all the Ukrainian hostages held in Russia. We must free them all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: President Trump announced this prisoner swap on social media, adding this could lead to something big. Three question marks. But what we are hearing from many officials speaking to CNN is that it is unlikely to herald any breakthrough in the talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Now, the prisoner exchange itself was really the only tangible success that we saw from those talks in Istanbul last week, and it's not expected necessarily to lead to anything further. This is, of course, the fifth prisoner exchange between the two countries that we have seen this year alone, the 64th since the war started.

So, unfortunately, there is not much positive talk coming from Kyiv at this point that this could herald anything other than what it is. And of course, they do welcome the fact that they will have their soldiers and civilians back. Victor?

BLACKWELL: Paula Hancocks for us, thank you. President Trump has reignited the trade war, threatening tariffs on Apple and the EU. Trump demanded Apple and other smartphone companies start making their cellphones in the U.S. or face tariffs of at least 25 percent. He's frustrated with the lack of progress on trade talks.

He also threatened the EU with 50 percent tariffs. CNN reporter Matt Egan explains what this could mean for popular products you buy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: This would be a major escalation in the President's trade wars, and this definitely caught investors off guard, right. They had been relieved about the fact that trade tensions seemed to be calming down, now they're heating back up. Just to remind you how we got here. Last month, the President briefly imposed 20 percent tariffs on the EU, then he lowered them to 10 percent to allow for time for negotiations.

Now, he's not happy about how those talks are going, and he's threatening a 50 percent tariff on the EU. Now, just to give you some context here, the EU is America's biggest trading partner, far and away. We're talking about almost a trillion dollars worth of imports and exports between the U.S. and the EU.

Last year alone, that's more than with Mexico, more than with Canada, it's actually more than with China and Japan combined. When you look at what the U.S. gets from the EU, we're talking about more than $600 billion worth of goods last year alone. It's not just the BMWs and the Volkswagens from Germany. We're also talking about aircrafts, pharmaceutical products, machinery, wine and other alcoholic beverages.

And if you put a 50 percent tariff on those goods, there's obviously a risk that they're going to get expensive, more expensive, potentially a lot more expensive. That's why economists at Barclays, they say that they view this threat of a 50 percent tariff as a negotiating tactic. But they do caution that if these tariffs did go into effect, they would weigh on both GDP growth, and they would further boost inflation.

So, you could have a situation where you have slower growth and higher prices. And we don't know yet exactly how the EU is going to respond, but they've already set in motion potential retaliatory tariffs on more than $100 billion of goods that they buy from the United States. And it's those retaliatory tariffs that could kill U.S. jobs.

[06:45:00]

Now, it's not just the EU that the President is threatening with his favorite weapon. Also, it is one of America's biggest companies Apple. Apple joining a growing list of U.S. companies that have been attacked by the President so far this year. And the thing Apple has in common with Amazon and Mattel and Walmart is how it's linked to tariffs, right.

The President is threatening at least a 25 percent tariff on Apple unless they move manufacturing back to the United States. But the problem is, the cost of labor here in the U.S. is so much higher, that this is something that not only Apple couldn't do overnight, right, it would take 5 to 10 years, but it would make the iPhone more expensive, way more expensive.

There's estimates out there that if the iPhone was made in the U.S., each one would cost $3,500 apiece, right. That is prohibitively expensive for many Americans, and that's why veteran analyst tech Dan Ives says that they believe this concept of Apple producing iPhones in the U.S. is a fairy tale.

And he says it's one that is not feasible. And look, even if Apple found a way to somehow make it economical, it is not clear at all that they'd be able to find enough workers in the U.S. who have the skills, and frankly, the desire to build iPhones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, Matt, thanks, giving us a lot to think about there. Billy Joel says that he is sorry to disappoint his fans. Coming up, the health concerns forcing him to step off the stage for the foreseeable future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:00]

BLACKWELL: Legendary singer Billy Joel has canceled all of his upcoming tour dates. He made the announcement on Instagram Friday. He tells his fans that he's seeking treatment for a rare neurological disorder where too much fluid builds up on his brain. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more on his diagnosis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): That's right. We're talking about something known as normal pressure hydrocephalus. So, people have heard of hydrocephalus, maybe that is something you typically associate with kids, with babies, water on the brain. What it really is, and take a look at these images here, is an increase in fluid in these normal fluid-filled spaces in the brain.

Now again, you typically associate it with children, but it can happen in adults as well, typically older adults, typically people over the age of 65. So, when you look at these images here on the left, that is sort of a normal brain. The image on the right, you can see that, those black sort of darker areas in the center of the brain, those are the ventricles, and they are bigger.

They are filled with more fluid. Typically that happens because the brain around those ventricles starts to shrink a bit, and the ventricles sort of expand to fill that space. This isn't something that happens commonly, but it is something that happens and is often associated with very classic symptoms.

People may have difficulty with walking and their balance. They may have difficulty with their bladder control overall, and they may have some cognitive difficulties, memory problems. A lot of times, this is a mimic for things like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. People go into the hospital, they get this scan because they're having symptoms, and sometimes they see something like this normal pressure hydrocephalus.

Now if somebody has this, the good news is that, it is potentially very treatable. Now, sometimes you put a needle in the lower back, something called a lumbar puncture, you drain fluid, the fluid from the brain and the spinal cord is all circulating around together. You drain some of that fluid, and sometimes the patient starts to feel better pretty quickly.

Their balance improves, their bladder control improves, their overall cognition improves. If that is the case, then what surgeons and I do this procedure myself -- what surgeons will do is sometimes put a catheter into the brain, into that fluid-filled space, and then drain that fluid to another place in the body, usually in the abdomen, that is called a shunt.

And that is a more permanent solution. So, that may be what Billy Joel is sort of thinking about now, talking to his doctors about. But it is, again, a potential -- it's rare, but potentially, a very treatable condition. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, Sanjay, thank you. Still to come, authorities in Louisiana are still searching for some of the inmates who escaped that New Orleans jail. Why the use of facial recognition technology is under scrutiny.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:00]

BLACKWELL: A seventh person is now facing charges after ten inmates escaped from a jail in Louisiana. New Orleans police say a 28-year-old was arrested yesterday accused of helping the fugitives. Earlier that day, Trayveon Williams(ph), already locked up, was rebooked and given another charge for his role in that breakout.

Five others have also been arrested this week, accused of New Orleans police -- helping by the New Orleans police, I should say, of helping the escapees get away. This morning, there are still five fugitives who have not been caught. And while the manhunt continues for those five remaining fugitives, questions are growing around the technology that helped catch a few of them. Here's CNN's Clare Duffy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARE DUFFY, CNN REPORTER (on camera): Yes, this facial recognition technology has already been involved in locating two of the five inmates who have been recaptured since that Friday jailbreak. Of course, the city is hoping that it will help them find the other five inmates that remain at large. Now, what's interesting about this is that, these facial recognition cameras are not actually operated by local law enforcement.

They are run by a nonprofit called Project NOLA. Project NOLA has 5,000 cameras around New Orleans, 200 of them have this facial recognition technology. I spoke with Bryan Lagarde, he's the executive director of Project NOLA, and he declined to tell me what A.I. model, what third party company provides the technology to do that facial recognition.

But he said, essentially, how it works is that they take law enforcement, be on the lookout alerts, they pull the photos of wanted suspects out of those things like crime scene surveillance images, mug shots, they plug them into their system, and then when their camera spots one of those people on the street, law enforcement will get an automatic alert.

So, this situation does mark a win for Project NOLA. But this technology is not without controversy. Critics have for years raised concerns about law enforcement use of facial recognition because of issues like individual privacy. And we've also seen a number of false arrests in other cities because of inaccurate matches by facial recognition systems, in particular, people of color are --