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CNN This Morning
Today Marks 60 Day War Powers Deadline; U.K. Grapples with Antisemitic Violence; Meta Threatens to Discontinue Service in Mexico; Taylor Swift Files Trademark Voice and Likeness. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired May 01, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00]
MIKE TORRES, CALIFORNIA RESIDENT: I don't know, like a huggable. It's a dangerous huggable, but like, you know, he looks like a Santa Claus version of a seal.
LAURI BRANDEN, CALIFORNIA RESIDENT: I think when we can get in touch with nature, something gets activated and let go in us. So, coming here and leaving a few of your cares here seems to appeal to me and a lot of other people because they're here and they want to see the dude.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: Experts say Chonkers likely chose this spot because of the abundance of fish in the water. That does it for us here on Early Start. I'm Brian Abel in Washington, D.C. CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Here we are, maybe in day 60 of the war with Iran. That means Congress is supposed to sign off on it, unless there's some kind of loophole.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: But we are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses.
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CORNISH: OK. Do deadlines even matter if the White House does not recognize them?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The election has already started.
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CORNISH: Thousands have already cast ballots, but Louisiana is now delaying its primary to redraw voting maps. Is that legal?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are on the brink of falling apart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: President Trump pulls nutrition influencer Casey Means' surgeon general nomination. Is the MAHA movement on life support?
And look what you made her do. Taylor Swift trademarks herself to fight deepfakes. Are celebs the only people powerful enough to set guardrails against A.I.? CNN This Morning starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I go again and again, the war power. I'm negotiating a deal with Iran. And every week, every three days, they put in a thing that the war should stop. And the -- and people ask me how the hell do you negotiate like that? You're destroying them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: We're talking deadlines and loopholes because today marks a milestone 60 days since the war began. We think.
Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to start with that legal deadline because of Vietnam era law says Congress must sign off on a conflict after 60 days. If the president doesn't get that approval, he must wind down military options. But the April 7th ceasefire may be the loophole that the White House is looking for.
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HEGSETH: We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire. So, they're not it. That's -- it's our understanding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. So, some Republicans actually aren't buying that.
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SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): I do not accept that we should engage in open ended military action without clear direction or accountability. Congress has a role. Congress has to step up and fulfill that role, that obligation that the Constitution assigns to us.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): The 60 days is a trigger. After 60 days, in my view, the president has to obtain congressional approval or Congress can block it. Those are the two choices.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): It just can't go on forever. If they don't want to have a discussion about AUMF, then we need to have a discussion about an extension under the War Powers Resolution. That's going to require details.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. Let's figure this out together today in the Group Chat, Mike Leon, host of the "Can We Please Talk" podcast, Tony Kinnett, national correspondent with The Daily Signal and host of the "Tony Kinnett Cast," and Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and host of The New York Times, "The Interview."
So, let me set the table with the War Powers Resolution of 1973, because I wondered, what is the actual rule? When is it supposed to start? It says the president in every possible instance, in every possible instance, shall consult with Congress before introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in the hostilities clearly indicated by their circumstances.
So, it doesn't just have a vague word like starts or strikes. It just has before introducing. And I think most of us feel like we've been thoroughly introduced.
MIKE LEON, HOST, "CAN WE PLEASE TALK?": We have been thoroughly introduced. Here's my issue with this. And I always take the point of somebody that's watching this that hates American politics, that doesn't understand any of this stuff, and these War Powers Acts from decades and eons ago. And the issue I have with this is that, Tony, you and I have talked about this in other segments, is being that Congress right now, the legislative branch is not doing their duty. This is part of their duty. We have committed this act.
CORNISH: Yes, and they've -- ever since the Bush era, they've felt like, oh, maybe we let this War Powers authorization thing kind of drag on a little too long.
LEON: Right.
CORNISH: I think the weird thing about this is time is of the essence. Like, it's in the U.S. incentive to delay because Iran is willing to hold out as long as possible. Do you think that's why Hegseth is up there sort of being like, well, actually, it's -- if you count by the ceasefire and subtract these days?
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LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR AND JOURNALIST AND HOST, THE NEW YORK TIMES "THE INTERVIEW": Like we understand why this is there. This is there because we are a democracy. And in a democracy, you have Congress, which is representing the people and they're there to hold the executive to account.
Obviously, Donald Trump doesn't like that. He's there complaining, saying, how can I execute this war if Congress is, you know, trying to tie my hands? But at the end of the day, this is important. It's important because this administration never made the case to the American people why they needed to prosecute this war. They certainly haven't made the case to the Congress why they need to prosecute this war.
CORNISH: Right.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And now, we're 60 days into this.
CORNISH: Which is why Hegseth has been on the Hill these last two days. I want to play for you guys --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And also, time has no meaning. I mean, what is that? Time has no meaning now. It's like the clock stop --
CORNISH: I mean, what is time is a thing I'm usually saying every week.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's like the clock stops.
CORNISH: Here's Mike Johnson and Rick Scott, who actually agree with Pete Hegseth, kind of going against what you're saying about whether or not the president needs approval. I want to play this because this is an ongoing conversation, who has the power to do what despite what may be in the Constitution? Here they are.
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SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): I think the president has the power to use our military to defend Americans. And I don't think he has to come to Congress for it anyway. But as Secretary Hegseth said, you know, we're in a ceasefire right now.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: house I don't think we have any active kinetic military bombing, firing, anything like that right now. We're trying to broker a peace. And it would be -- I'd be very reluctant to get in front of the administration in the midst of these very sensitive negotiations. So, we'll have to see how that plays out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Catching him walking is a bit of a metaphor because they've gone home. So, they're not around to have this conversation further.
TONY KINNETT, HOST, "TONY KINNETT CAST", HOST, THE DAILY SIGNAL "TOP NEWS IN 10" AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY SIGNAL: So, one of the key things you see Speaker Johnson focusing on there is the active kinetic strike situation of the Operation Epic Fury situation.
CORNISH: And to translate, anytime someone says kinetic, they're kind of saying when a bomb falls.
KINNETT: Right.
CORNISH: Or they're strikes, they're drones.
KINNETT: The drones are firing.
CORNISH: yes.
KINNETT: Targeted strikes on the offensive. So, the Supreme Court gave the rationale for the Trump administration in this particular instance to maintain the current state of the conflict, which is the blockade, saying, look, President Trump, you can't just levy tariffs all over, but you can levy this economic embargo, which, according to the language from the Trump administration, seems to mirror that kind of action regarding the kind of UNO card reverse Hormuz Strait blockade by the U.S. Navy, preventing certain powers from trading up the Persian Gulf with Iran.
LEON: Tony's right, because if you think about it, the entire time, the language and the way they've messaged about this, first it was military operations, and then Trump was like, no, actually, I committed a war. And then it just kept changing. So, he's right. They're very -- with respect to the language that they're using around this, they're very careful in it.
And if you saw in that exchange that happened yesterday with Hegseth and Senator Tim Kaine about the clock stopping on, with respect to the ceasefire, it's almost like playing a game of tag. And then you, you know, this is base right here. No, no, no, no, hold on. That's not base. And then we have to argue about base.
The ceasefire doesn't necessarily do that. But the language that Hegseth said to him with respect to, no, the clock has stopped is subject to interpretation. That's what the White House is arguing.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I use this on my credit card, dad? Can I just say like the clock stops? You know, I'm in a ceasefire and I'm not going to pay you back. I mean, this is not credible. And --
CORNISH: I mean, does your credit card company have the strength of will of Iran? I mean, they're waiting.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. But I mean, this --
CORNISH: One of the arguments from the administration is like, look, this blockade, this counter blockade is having some success and giving it time to do its work, maybe what's necessary.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. Go to Congress and get -- go to Congress and make your case.
KINNETT: But the Supreme Court says that the president doesn't need to go to Congress in order to enact an embargo on another country. If they were carrying out kinetic strikes via MQ-9 Reaper drones at this moment, I'd absolutely agree with you. And I think that's what a lot of --
CORNISH: So, we're talking about the time you're saying the blockade is a loophole?
KINNETT: I'm not saying they have time to continue doing the strike at all.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Have they ended Epic Fury though? Have they actually said this part of this operation is over? In fact, quite the opposite. The president has sat there and kept his options. CORNISH: All right. You guys, hold on one second. We're going to have more. We're going to have Adam Kinzinger. We're going to have all kinds of people on to help us understand the context here.
But I want to turn to one other thing. We're paying attention to senators. And guess what? There is a U.S. Senate race everyone is paying attention to because the establishment candidate has dropped out and that is leaving a progressive upstart all alone to possibly take it.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My criticisms of leadership, my criticisms of the party, they remain.
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CORNISH: So, did Chuck Schumer misread the room? Plus, the terror threat in the U.K. raised a rabbi now warning that if you are, quote, "visibly Jewish, you are not safe." And why Meta is threatening to pull their social media sites from New Mexico.
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[06:10:00]
CORNISH: OK. It's almost 15 minutes past the hour. I'm giving you five things to know to get your day going. Now, the British government is saying that the country is facing an emergency when it comes to antisemitic violence. Two people were stabbed in the middle of London's largest Jewish community just this week, sparking new fears over a string of recent attacks.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My children don't want to leave, but I want to leave. I don't feel safe anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love England. I'm a proud British Jew and a Jewish Brit. But it really does worry me, something I've never felt before.
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CORNISH: A 45-year-old has been arrested in connection to this stabbing attack. Eight New York City police officers injured in an explosion at a house in Queens. The blast sent several of them flying through the air. Officers were responding to a call about a man armed with a knife and the smell of gas. They were all treated for burns and minor injuries.
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The Texas girls camp, where 27 children and counselors were killed in flooding last July, has dropped plans to reopen this summer. Camp Mystic had hoped to reopen, but families pushed back, saying it was too soon. They worried the camp couldn't ensure everyone's safety, and multiple investigations into what went wrong that day are still going.
And Meta is threatening to leave New Mexico after the state sued the company for $375 million. They're accusing them of lacking child safety protocols. And prosecutors demanded that Meta make changes on all platforms. Company execs believe the order is infeasible, and they argue that exiting New Mexico would diffuse concerns to online safety.
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TRUMP: Lee, you're fired.
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CORNISH: OK. Don't call it a comeback. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon Prime wants to bring back President Trump's reality show from the early 2000s. Amazon says the reboot is not in active development, but there's speculation the host would be Donald Trump Jr. Here is how dad responded.
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TRUMP: He's a good guy. He'd be probably good. He's got a little charisma going. You need a little charisma for that sucker.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: And I know that Lulu is set to record on the reboot.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I don't know. With a dad like that, I mean, it sounds like my mom. I mean, she's OK on TV. I don't know. I mean, you need a little bit --
CORNISH: Yes
LEON: Well, Lulu, I'm the only one that does a really good Trump.
CORNISH: Parents keep us humble. After the break on CNN This Morning, we've got some more song titles for you. No, seriously, "The Life of a Showgirl," Taylor Swift, taking on A.I. We want to talk about whether or not she has more power than many of our political leaders.
Plus, another one bites the dust. Why the latest candidate for surgeon general is out.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wanted to put into position a woman who believes in magic crystals and tree power and moonbeams as magical powers.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER: The entertainment industry love bombs, women, right? We love you. We don't know who you are, why are you even here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: All right. We're going to talk about Taylor Swift's bad blood with A.I. You just saw her image there, right, speaking direct to camera. Well, the superstar has now applied a trademark to her voice and likeness to leave no blank space for A.I. deep fakes and preserve her reputation. You're welcome. The now iconic image of Swift is a sequined outfit with a pink guitar, which many of you saw during the Eras Tour, and that was also used in her application. And frankly, A.I. deep fakes are something she knows all too well.
Before the 2024 presidential election, President Trump actually posted these A.I. images of Swift. And Swift is now also applying to trademark her spoken voice, submitting records of her saying two phrases. Let's let you hear one of them.
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SWIFT: Hey, it's Taylor Swift, and you can listen to my new album, "The Life of a Showgirl," on demand on Amazon Music Unlimited.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: All right. So, I am bringing in social commentator and music writer C.J. Farley. He's the author of a book called "Who Knows You by Heart." And I want to talk to you about the fact that Taylor has already been the victim of deep fakes, pornographic images, all kinds of A.I. slop. People on TikTok use her image to sell things. Can you talk about how -- why you think she stepped in at this time?
C.J. FARLEY, AUTHOR, "WHO KNOWS YOU BY HEART" AND CULTURAL COMMENTATOR: Well, here's the thing about Taylor Swift. I mean, she's someone who actually doesn't play the victim, and she's been on offense her entire career. And this is just one more example of it. I remember years ago, and this is just when she was 20 years old, I went down to Nashville to interview her, and she just moved out of her parents' condo into her own place for the first time.
And even then, 20 years old, I mean, she was just a few months out of being a teenager, she was talking about taking control of her image and her songwriting and doing her own songwriting and not relying on the Nashville machine. And so, this is something she's done from the beginning, taking control of her career, and she's fought against Spotify to get more money for musicians. She's pioneered a new business model for releasing concert films. It was quite lucrative for her. So, she's fought for her own masters to get control of that. Everyone who's a fan of hers knows about that, about Taylor's version and her trying to control her own music.
So, this is really basically the ultimate Taylor's version move, where now she wants to create a Taylor's version of herself to make sure she has control of her own image. And so, this is par for the course for Taylor Swift.
CORNISH: I also want to reflect on her track record, meaning you mentioned her boycott against Spotify. That was 2014, 2017, three years of pulling her catalog. Her open letter to Apple, which made them reverse a decision that would have had them not paying artists for the first couple of months of their trials on Apple Music. It feels like she does actually have the sway, but can she go up against the A.I. companies?
FARLEY: Yes, we will see. I think this battle matters because I think this is something that all of us are starting to go through. And we've all had, like, parents or grandparents or relatives who have been fooled by deepfakes and said, hey, do you see this? And they forward something to us. We've got to call them and say, hey, that's not real.
Now, not all of us have the kind of money and power and legal team that Taylor Swift has to stick them on a problem.
[06:25:00]
And so, we have to hope that she does accomplish something for the rest of us and we can see whether there's some trickle down through the economy that can help other people who are going through similar kinds of things.
CORNISH: You talked about going down to Nashville and meeting her and seeing her at that part of her career. She's in a really new phase now, right? A kind of billionaire phase. Post-Eras Tour, she's probably going to have her wedding, another album. What do you see in terms of where she's going next?
FARLEY: Yes. Well, I think we're going to -- and this is what's interesting about her, is that part of this move is about taking control of what her image is. But her image is always changing. She's someone who doesn't stay in the same place forever in her career.
And so, that presents new challenges because if you have an image that's always changing, if you have a brand that's always changing, are there parts of that brand you can then sort of register and say, hey, this is what I do when someone like Taylor Swift, someone who's all about eras and changing from era to era. So, that's what I think is going to be sort of challenging here.
But I think the hope for the rest of us, and I'm very positive about where technology can go, I think it shows the rest of us that these things aren't inevitable. I think there's a sense from people that we're going down a certain path of A.I., there's nothing we can do about it, that it's kind of inevitable like Thanos in the Marvel movies. And this shows things aren't inevitable, that you can challenge things, that consumers, artists, may be able to have some sort of say with novel strategies, novel business strategies, novel legal strategies. They may have some sort of say about where this technology is going first. We don't just have to sit back and let it happen to us.
CORNISH: OK. That's author C.J. Farley talking to us about Taylor Swift and her effort to trademark her voice and likeness. Thank you so much, C.J.
I need a little more help legally though because I've heard of a trademark but not a sound mark. So, here's Elliott Williams. We're going to lawyer up our CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor.
All right. So, I know that Matthew McConaughey has also tried to file a certain kind of application about this.
ELLIOTT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: All right. All right. All right. He has.
CORNISH: Well, settle down. All right. I don't want to get you sued.
WILLIAMS: That's literally what it is.
CORNISH: I don't want to get you sued.
WILLIAMS: It's for that expression.
CORNISH: It is for -- but that's for a specific expression. And then an old friend of mine, full bias, full disclosure, David Greene, a former NPR host, was going up against Google because their LLM generates a podcast. And I just want to play for you. He was sort of explaining what it is about his voice he was trying to protect. It's not that clear, you know what I mean, what it means for the court. So, here's for the audience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GREENE, FORMER NPR HOST: The only tool that I felt like I brought into the room was myself, you know, expressing empathy, curiosity, respect with my voice. And just the idea that that can somehow be stolen is something that I couldn't live with if I didn't at least see where the courts could take this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: Where can the courts take this?
WILLIAMS: It's not clear because the law is just untested. It doesn't even exist yet. As Taylor Swift would say, it's a blank space.
CORNISH: Well done. Well done. Everybody here, we're out of control.
WILLIAMS: Look what you made me do.
CORNISH: OK. Well --
WILLIAMS: (INAUDIBLE). OK. No, no, no. But truly, this is information and material and law that does not exist yet. And there's a few different reasons. And problems with what David Greene was saying there. Number one, what is a voice? It's not a product. And also, the things that are being created in A.I. aren't necessarily copies of his voice.
CORNISH: Yes, let me jump in, just let you finish. Google, in response to his claim, said that these allegations are baseless. And they explained it by saying, the sound of the male voice in Notebook LM's audio overviews is based on a paid professional actor that Google hired.
It's sort of like, they can always say, the source of the voice is not the person. Does that work with a Taylor Swift, where everyone knows her voice?
WILLIAMS: And typically, when you talk about trademark and copyright, you're talking about things that are copies of the original thing. What happens when the A.I. produces an entirely new thing that, yes, it sounds like Audie Cornish, or yes, it sounds like Taylor Swift or David Greene or whomever else, however, it is a newly produced product. And it just, the law is very inconsistent.
CORNISH: Can I ask one more -- oh, go ahead.
KINNETT: For voice actors as well here, for example, James Arnold Taylor is known for doing impressions of everyone from political figures to Obi-Wan Kenobi. So, if you have him, are we going to trademark Ewan McGregor's voice for James Arnold Taylor? It's not clear.
CORNISH: Can I add one more thing, though? You were bringing to the table, for our lawyer up, the question of U.S. defamation laws. Like, if I ask A.I. a question about me or you and it says something that's not true, is that defamation?
WILLIAMS: If it's made public. Now, the interesting thing, and where I came to that, was with the king here, I was thinking, what's going on in England right now? And they're exploring questions of what happens when AI produces something defamatory. It's important the distinction between the United States and the UK.
CORNISH: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And that here, we protect speakers, there they protect the persons that's injured. Well what happens when AI says something that's wrong, as it often does, somehow it gets out there. Number one, who is the individual who created that thing, who is liable for that thing? And who do you sue? And at a certain point, both here and across the pond, we are going to have to confront these questions of who the actual defendant is and what they actually did.
CORNISH: All right you guys, I want to leave that there for a second even though I could literally talk about this for the rest of the half hour
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