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CNN This Morning
Trump and Musk's Alliance Implodes; Matt Grossman is Interviewed about Labor Department Data Accuracy; Trump Administration Relying on Polygraphs; Lizzo Claims Sexual Harassment; Musk Floats Idea of New Party. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired June 06, 2025 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:32:53]
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STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Is this Twitter war a cheesy gordita crunchwrap supreme? Because it's dripping hot, messy filth and I am eating up every sloppy bite.
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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It's like an episode of the real housewives of the Oval Office. A full-blown feud between the president and Elon Musk blowing up on social media.
Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.
It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.
A massive falling out between President Donald Trump and one of his biggest backers, Elon Musk. It all started after the president said he was disappointed in Musk for his criticisms of the big, beautiful bill. It blew up from there with Musk saying Trump would have lost the election without him, and Trump threatening to pull Musk's government contracts.
And overnight, Russia launched a massive aerial strike on Ukraine. Drones and ballistic missiles hit multiple targets across the country, according to Ukrainian officials. At least four people are dead. It's unclear if this is a response to Ukraine's daring drone strike deep inside Russia from over the weekend.
And we'll get a new read this morning on how President Trump's back and forth tariffs are impacting the jobs market. The May jobs report is expected to show a softening when it comes to hiring, with 130,000 jobs added last month. That's down from April's 177,000 jobs.
OK, so what happens when the world's richest man and one of the world's most powerful men get into a massive feud? The consequences could go well past hurt feelings and bruised egos for President Trump and Elon Musk as their relationship goes up in flames. Musk spent the first 100 days in the White House, firing more than 120,000 federal workers while leading DOGE.
During their collective meltdown on social media, Donald Trump suggested doing something to Musk that Musk did to dozens of deals while working for DOGE, tearing up government contracts, specifically the subsidies to Musk's companies like Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk replies, "make my day." Things escalated from there, with a threat ending to decommission his company's Dragon Space Capsule.
[06:35:04]
He later walked back that threat. But taking the ship offline would basically cut off the only way for NASA astronauts to get to the International Space Station from U.S. soil.
The blowup could have real ramifications also for Musk's companies. Tesla stock, for example, tumbled 14 percent throughout Thursday's clash. Musk personally lost about $34 billion in personal net worth, according to Forbes, and Trump's allies are calling for extreme action against Musk's perceived disloyalty.
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STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: The acts should -- that President Trump should be taking immediately, I think, when he threatens to take one of the big programs out of SpaceX, President Trump, tonight, should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act to be called in SpaceX and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. The U.S. government should seize it.
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CORNISH: The group chat is back.
OK, this time we're talking about the rest of us. Musk has a wide array of companies that could face regulations by U.S. agencies. So, Starlink needs FCC permissions. Neuralink is covered by the FDA. Tesla has been facing investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission. Musk himself, of course, has been under commission several times by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
So, what do you hear in Bannon suggesting how to target him further?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: The Bannon-Musk relationship has been bad from the get go and Bannon clearly is delighting in having the upper hand here.
Look, it -- the way that Musk is intertwined now in the government is not just in what you were talking about. We were -- a couple of weeks ago, where there was reporting about how in some of the tariff negotiations there were requirements for using Starlink for the other countries to do that. All of these DOGE employees that Musk had --
CORNISH: Are still there. Yes. DOVERE: They're still in the government. Those people, I think, are seen as more loyal to Elon Musk than to Donald Trump. We do not know not only what they've been doing, but how much information they've been retaining and what they've been doing with that information from all over the place. It's -- it's a lot.
CORNISH: Remember, there are a couple of factors that led to this fight in the -- in the first place. Number one, Elon Musk was not satisfied with Republicans stripping out some of the subsidies for electric vehicles in the one big beautiful bill. And so, I think that he took personal offense to that. It's one of the reasons he's come out in opposition.
Secondly, Trump pulled the NASA administrator, who was a recommendation of Elon Musk, and -- and that certainly caused even greater friction between the two. And so you're absolutely right, Audie, and that he has a stake here. And -- and, obviously, NASA, and the EV credits, were a big part of his business empire.
CORNISH: Yes.
Lulu.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I mean, underlying all of this is the real problem of having an unelected billionaire, the richest man in the world, opening the government to him and allowing him to run wild and to profit from that opening of the federal government, which he did. Let us not forget, Donald Trump himself had some sort of car sale in front of the White House for -- for -- for his -- for the Tesla cars.
So, you know, at the -- at the crux of this is a very troubling development that we've seen in this country where you have the bonding of government and extreme wealth and corporate power. And the real question underlying this is, will this actually fray that union, or is this just between two men?
CORNISH: Right. And you heard Musk's threat -- threat online of Trump will only be there for three and a half years. I'll be around for 40. It's an interesting moment.
Group chat, stay with us. We've got a lot more to discuss.
The Labor Department drops the May jobs report. That's happening in about two hours. There are also now concerns about the accuracy of the department's inflation data.
Matt Grossman of "The Wall Street Journal" writes, "a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month's inflation report, government statisticians had to use less precise methods for guessing price changes."
Joining me now from New York, the author of that full article.
Matthew, welcome. Thanks for being here this morning. MATT GROSSMAN, REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Thanks for having
me.
CORNISH: So, all this time people, the first hundred days, had been worried about government cuts that would lead to problems with data. The resources to collect and maintain data. What can you tell us about the Labor Department?
GROSSMAN: Yes. So, it's actually rather labor intensive, the process of getting together the statistics on inflation and unemployment every month.
For inflation, the process involves sending hundreds of people out to businesses all across the country and literally checking how much prices have changed over the past month. For the most part, as far as we can tell, that process is still working the way it's supposed to, but there's some places in the country where the Labor Department has found itself without enough staff to check as many businesses as it usually does.
[06:40:05]
And so the full survey is not quite getting done at the level that it usually is.
CORNISH: President Trump and his team have been pressuring the Fed to lower interest rates. Just hear -- listen to this.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China in other countries. And the president's been very vocal about that, both publicly and now I can reveal privately as well.
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CORNISH: Matt, the reason why I'm playing this, because we need -- we need to make policy decisions, right? People in this country actually need to rely on government data, objective analysis to make these decisions. What do you -- what to you is significant about this moment?
GROSSMAN: Yes, absolutely. And -- and you talked about the Fed. I mean Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said that keeping these statistics accurate and well informed is -- is absolutely a priority in terms of being able to set policy well.
It's important to say, there's no suggestion or evidence that anyone in the government is intentionally moving the statistics in one way or the other. This is about the agency doing the best that it can with limited resources while there's a federal hiring freeze in place.
But these statistics are really important for setting how much the Social Security benefits go up every year, or where the tax brackets are, not to mention policy questions like at the Fed or the White House, like you were talking about.
So, getting these numbers right is very important. And that's why even when there's a small suggestion of more guesswork getting done, that -- that sort of starts to -- to get people's attention.
CORNISH: Matt Grossman, writer at "The Wall Street Journal," thank you so much.
GROSSMAN: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: OK, so here's some more reporting that took my eye. I mean, I'm just kind of obsessed with it.
CNN's Zachary Wolf writes that "the Trump administration revives an old intimidation tactic, the polygraph machine." Previous administrations have used lie detector tests to weed out leakers, but the current administration appears to be relying on them as a method of intimidation. "The polygraph has been weaponized," and is "frequently being used to identify not leaks of classified information but rather unclassified conversations regarding policy" or just "embarrassing decisions that have made their way through the rumor mill." That's according to Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in representing people who work in national security.
The White House has not shied away from praising the virtues of polygraphs.
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KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Anyone who is leaking information outside of -- of how something is planned for the safety of those law enforcement officers needs to be held accountable for that.
MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS: And you're going to continue these polygraphing of employees?
NOEM: Absolutely. The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive. And I plan to use every single one of them.
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CORNISH: CNN senior politics writer Zachary Wolf is here.
Thank you for being with us this morning on this reporting.
ZACHARY WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So, DHS, Pentagon, FBI, are some of the departments in your reporting you found where this is being used as accelerated. What's the traditional use versus what makes this moment distinct?
WOLF: So, they've been used a lot by the government basically to weed people out. You know, you get one when you get a job in national security or law enforcement. And then if you're, you know, say working with sensitive information, you might get one every five to 10 years. But now they're being used almost punitively to -- to find -- by people who -- against people who have never had polygraphs in their careers. It's just like --
CORNISH: So, we think you might be a problem. Come on in. We're going to --
WOLF: Or to suss out, you know, we didn't like what appeared on CNN or in "The New York Times," so we're going to give you a polygraph machine.
But what I found, it was interesting in researching this story is that back in the '80s, these were given to millions of Americans. Like 2 million people were getting polygraph machines every year. And Congress said, this is not OK. This is coercive. It doesn't -- they don't work. So, they outlawed them for everybody but public service --
CORNISH: Oh, interesting.
WOLF: Public servants. So, they basically changed the, you know, atmosphere. So, they're still around for public servants, but the rest of us, like you and I, probably aren't going to get a polygraph machine from CNN.
CORNISH: In your reporting, when you reached out to the White House, when you talked to them about this, kind of what's the response, how are they justifying it?
WOLF: I mean they say that this is sensitive information, that they have the power to do this and they need to be able to -- to go out and look for it essentially. It's just kind of a new application of something that, you know, hasn't been done before recently.
CORNISH: Kind of what's your look -- what are you looking forward to? What are you keeping an eye on going forward around this issue? Do you think there might be people who speak out more? Do you think that they're going to clamp down even harder as times get tougher?
WOLF: I'm kind of interested in if you're -- if you're a polygraph person at, say, you know, the TSA and now you're giving polygraph, you know, tests to random people in the agency, like, how do you -- how do you feel about that?
[06:45:05]
Are there -- are we going to see people in that industry sort of start to, you know, to -- to leave or get frustrated?
CORNISH: All right, Zach Wolf, thank you so much. You can check out his reporting online. He's CNN's senior politics reporter.
And also his newsletter, I got to mention that, "What Matters." You can subscribe now on cnn.com. And I am a subscriber, Zach.
WOLF: Thank you.
CORNISH: So, appreciate it.
Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, pop star Lizzo fighting back in court over allegations of sexual harassment. Is her right to free speech under attack? We'll lawyer up and talk about it with Elliot Williams.
Plus, Tokyo, we have a problem. How a Japanese company's moon landing mission ended in failure.
Plus, of course, more from the group chat after this.
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REP. RO KHANA (D-CA): In the divorce of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who gets custody of J.D. Vance?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But this bromance is so messy, you guys.
[06:50:02]
Like this breakup is messy as all hell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean it's definitely made for Bravo. I mean this is like the real housewives of foggy bottom. I mean it definitely is -- the reunion show. I mean Andy -- Andy Cohen, if you're listening, you got to produce this reunion show. I have the seating chart of the -- like where is Stephen Miller going to be seated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any quick reaction on what's going on with Elon Musk and President Trump on Twitter right now?
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Oh, man, the girls are fighting, aren't they?
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CORNISH: Democrats there talking about the very public Trump-Musk split. Breaking up is hard to do, as we saw with Brangelina, Bennifer, Mump. Turns out it's actually peak season for divorces as couples tend to split up right around now into summer.
What's driving those divorces? It's time to find out as we lawyer up with CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.
Elliot, good morning.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.
CORNISH: So, I thought there was something in the air. And apparently that is billable hours.
WILLIAMS: It is.
CORNISH: So, explain to me this divorce season. WILLIAMS: It's fascinating. You know, all litigation is about human
behavior. And even this most intimate form of litigation is subject to people's lives. And divorce lawyers talk about the fact there are two big spikes. One is March-April, and another one is at the end of the summer. Why? Because there are no major holidays there. And people apparently do not want to upend their family's Christmases or Thanksgivings or so on by dropping the --
CORNISH: So they holding off until --
WILLIAMS: And they hold off, yes, and hoping that things will get better, you know.
CORNISH: OK.
Speaking of human behavior, pop star Lizzo has been in this kind of long running lawsuit where some of her, I think, backup performers were -- had all kinds of allegations against her. She's now countersuing. What's going on with that suit?
WILLIAMS: Right. So, it's interesting. So, she's suing under California's SLAPP statute, Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation, like a First Amendment statute. So, someone whose music slaps is suing under the SLAPP lawsuit.
CORNISH: You've been waiting all day for that.
WILLIAMS: I've been waiting my whole life. Not all day, Audie.
CORNISH: You know, I just -- I appreciate that.
WILLIAMS: No. No, but she is -- she's claiming that her free speech rights are infringed by people suing her for sexual harassment, that she had a right to take her -- her dancers to a strip club in Amsterdam, that she had a right to make comments about them or their bodies because her creative mission relies on that. So, I don't know, truth hurts perhaps. Well, a court will find.
CORNISH: Oh, my God.
All right, this is a serious news program.
WILLIAMS: She's not good as hell (ph).
CORNISH: OK. OK.
WILLIAMS: Yes. All right.
CORNISH: We're going to talk next about this law firm going after newsrooms for made in America labeling that's on its products.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: Now, this is important, I think, because in this moment everyone is trying to dodge the tariff laws in one way or another.
WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
CORNISH: So, help me understand this fight over made in America.
WILLIAMS: Absolutely. So, a number of major entities, and we're talking PepsiCo, Goya, French's mustard, have put different forms of -- of guarantees on their products, ranging from manufactured in America, assembled in America or made in America. Now --
CORNISH: Those are three different things.
WILLIAMS: They're three very different things, but they're trying to sort of massage the notion of when a certain portion of your products come from other countries, what can you get away with saying?
CORNISH: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Well, there is a law -- a law firm that since President Trump was elected has been bringing a number of these suits as class actions, trying to get people to be a little more above board about what they claim.
CORNISH: What is actually made in America. Yes.
WILLIAMS: What is actually made in America. Now, it's interesting, and I didn't realize this, different states have different rules as to what it takes to be able to make that assertion. And, for instance, in California, where a number of these are filed, if more than 10 percent of the items in the product come from elsewhere, you cannot make a made in America assertion on the product.
And so, this is really as -- this is another speech thing, but it's also about the Federal Trade Commission or, you know, honest advertising, what you can actually say your product actually is.
CORNISH: All right, Elliot, thank you. As always, you take me on a journey through legal world.
WILLIAMS: Thanks, Audie.
CORNISH: Elliot is CNN's legal analyst.
All right, it's now 53 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup.
In just a matter of hours, a woman known as Jane will return to the stand in the Sean Combs trial. She's accused Diddy of pressuring her to have sex with other men. And yesterday the judge rebuked Combs for his behavior in court, telling him that his vigorous nodding to the jury could lead to his removal from the courtroom.
And a crash landing brought a Japanese company's moon mission to an end. The Resilience crashed Thursday evening. Executives at iSpace promise a thorough review of what happened, but are initially blaming a software error for causing the spacecraft to miscalculate its altitude. And the Indiana Pacers notched its first NBA finals win in 25 years.
The Pacers launched a come from behind 15 point rally in the fourth quarter over the Oklahoma City Thunder in game one. Game two is Sunday night in Oklahoma City. That's before heading to Indy next Wednesday.
OK, so where do things go from here after this massive blow up between Elon Musk and Donald Trump? Could we see an actual political movement break away from all of this?
[06:55:04]
Now, this poll, of course, is not scientific, but Musk did post a question asking his users, quote, "is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle?" And more than 80 percent of his fans said yes. Again, that poll is not scientific in the slightest, but it does reflect some frustrations seen in even recent CNN polling. When asked which party can get things done, 44 percent said neither.
The group chat is back.
We should be clear, Elon Musk's popularity is at all-time lows. Like low, low, low. I think negative 19 points at this point.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I don't think he'd win to be president of the new party.
: Except among his Twitter followers.
CORNISH: Well -- OK, so let's get to that world of kind of libertarian tech bro MAGA -- like, I don't know if anyone goes with him, but who are you going to be watching that will give you an indication that something's brewing behind this personal blow up?
ROB BLUEY, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE DAILY SIGNAL": Yes, I -- well, first of all, on the point of a -- a third party, I -- I'm just not optimistic about that emerging. I don't think that as -- as frustrated as the American people seem to be with both the Republican and Democrat Party.
CORNISH: But it was independents that swung it for Trump, right? That's what Musk is implying about his spending.
BLUEY: That's true. And I think that Musk sees maybe an opportunity there to express frustration about the debt, but also carry forward some ideas that -- that really are -- don't necessarily fit neatly within the Republican Party structure either.
CORNISH: Yes.
BLUEY: And so we'll see where --
CORNISH: It was always an uneasy alliance.
BLUEY: Exactly.
CORNISH: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, I'm curious to see if Musk actually ends up being like a lot of big donors, which is to say, he will spread the largesse more widely and try and influence not just one party, but two. Democrats are really trying to see if they can game this moment and if they can sort of lure big-pocketed Musk to their side. I don't think that's going to happen, but maybe his giving will be more intentional.
CORNISH: Yes, like there's a world of candidate out there who could benefit from the boost if he --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Right.
CORNISH: I mean even -- if he even sticks around.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He is close to some Democrats, especially in California.
CORNISH: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, you know, it -- it -- it remains to be seen. But -- but, yes, I'm not sure that the Elon Musk party is necessarily going to be a thing.
CORNISH: No, no DOGE thinking dog? OK.
Go on.
DOVERE: I just say that the -- the bigger problem is this lack of confidence in either party. You see other polls that have shown when people are asked which party has my best interests at heart, and people will say neither the Republicans or Democrats by large numbers.
CORNISH: Right.
DOVERE: Those are deep problems for this democracy and for whatever the future of the country is going to hold.
CORNISH: Yes. Yes.
BLUEY: To pick up on -- on Isaac's point. I mean you had a situation where a lot of people voted Republican because Donald Trump was on the ballot. And so, if you think beyond Trump's term and where the Republican Party goes, will they have that same allegiance? I mean you saw this in a new "New York Times" report that's out today looking at county level data. It's just fascinating to see how the country has shifted, in part because of that -- that affection that they had for Trump, the person.
CORNISH: OK, I think a lot of people today might be keeping an eye out for more tweets and posts between these two. I want to talk about what else you are keeping an eye on today.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I am keeping an eye on the fact that it is gay pride month. And here in the District of Columbia, this is the big weekend where there are gay pride events. Because of the posture of this administration, which is where it lives in the District of Columbia, there has been a lot of back and forth about what is going to happen here in terms of those celebrations.
What I will say about this, what is interesting to me is that this is civil society actually responding to this moment. And so, it has a larger context that isn't just about gay pride month or anything else, but what is civil society doing about some of the administration's policies, which they don't like?
CORNISH: OK.
Rob Bluey.
BLUEY: OK, I'm going to bring up a sports story and hold up "The New York Post."
CORNISH: That's a good one. It's a good one.
BLUEY: It's a good one. Forty-two-year-old Aaron Rodgers is headed to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now legendary quarterback.
CORNISH: It's -- it's Pittsburgh's problem now. You haters.
BLUEY: Even Terry Bradshaw has -- has -- has cast some shade on this one. So, we'll see how this ultimately works out. But practices start next week.
CORNISH: Oh my goodness.
Isaac.
DOVERE: We've been talking a lot about what's going on in the Republican Party. In New York City there's a mayor's race going on. The primary is June 24th for the Democrats. There was the first debate just this past week. The next debate is this coming week. What this says about where the Democratic Party is and whether the party is more with Andrew Cuomo's kind of politics, which seems where things are.
CORNISH: Yes. I mean New York politics are pretty specific, but they're such big figures. They're national figures in some cases.
DOVERE: Yes, but what I -- look, I'm a born and bred New Yorker, started covering politics New York politics.
CORNISH: Yes.
DOVERE: I've written about this race this week even. But what you see going on with the progressive wing of the party is not just a level of disagreement and chaos, but a -- an inability to connect so far with voters on these kinds of ideas.
CORNISH: Yes.
OK, for me, I definitely am looking forward to the jobs report.
[07:00:03] I have had more than one person tell me whatever's going on with the economy, that's where the rubber meets the road with employers.
And then also I am going to watch "Good Night and Good Luck" on Saturday night here on CNN. Not just because it's here on CNN, but because I, you know, I was a young person when the movie came out, and I think it's just going to be a neat moment.
So, you guys, thank you so much. We talked about a lot today, as always.
Thank you for waking up with us, for spending time with us this week. I'm Audie Cornish. And CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.
