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Trump Pauses Plan to Guide Ships Through Strait; Five Trump- Backed Challengers Defeat Indiana GOP Incumbents; Vivek Ramaswamy Wins Republican Primary for Governor; Secretary Rubio heads to Rome to meet with Pope Leo. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 06, 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]

BRIAN SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: Aerial video of that crash there. The man then got out of the car and walked onto the grass with his hands up. Deputies say that he sped off after they tried to pull him over for an alleged assault. There you can see him coming out of the brush there and putting himself on the ground, surrendering himself. We'll continue to track any developments in all of those wild chases and video stories.

That does it for CNN Headline Express. CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish starts now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: So, Team Trump spent the better part of the day declaring a ship guiding operation in the Middle East a huge success. So, why did the president just put the whole thing on pause?

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry. This is where y'all live now. We actually can't risk you guys coming back into society.

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CORNISH: Three people were just evacuated from that cruise ship where a deadly virus is spreading. So, what does that mean for the passengers still stuck on board? And new comments from Pope Leo about the gospel, nuclear weapons and the truth. Is this another message for President Trump? There's a new proposal for the White House ballroom that wasn't supposed to cost taxpayers a dime. Lawmakers now want a billion dollars to make it secure. And an out of this world admission from former President Barack Obama why he wants to talk to aliens.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: First contact. I think I would be a good emissary.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We have established a powerful red, white and blue dome over the Strait. American destroyers are on station supported by hundreds of fighter jets, helicopters, drones and surveillance aircraft, providing 24/7 overwatch for peaceful commercial vessels.

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CORNISH: Or not, or maybe all of that is now on hold. So, we're going to find out what's behind the shift in strategy. Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. And we're going to start at least with a glimmer of diplomacy. Late last night, President Trump said that he's pausing the operation to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz as his administration works towards a deal with Iran. The president has touted Project Freedom as a, quote, "total success," though we did learn just a short time ago that a French cargo ship was damaged and its crew injured in an attack.

Now, Iran calls the pause a failure of the U.S. to achieve its objectives. And hours before this decision was made public, Trump officials insisted Iran was on its back foot.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Iran has no chance. They never did. They know it. They expressed it to me when I talk to them.

HEGSETH: We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact. They said they control the Strait. They do not.

GEN. DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: It feels like Iran is grasping at straws to try to do something.

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Our leverage on Iran will continue to increase and their position will continue to weaken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right. So, bringing into the group chat, Tal Kopan, deputy Washington bureau chief with the Boston Globe, Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator and co-founder and editor in chief of the dispatch, and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here.

Here's where we try and translate and parse all of the different kind of commentary that we've been hearing out of Washington. And it's interesting seeing Hegseth say one thing, Rubio say another. And then, of course, we're living in an era where, you know, we're ruled by Truth Social. We hear something else. Does any of what they're saying counter the reality of what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz?

TAL KOPAN, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: I mean, we've seen this literally since the beginning. They can't -- they couldn't articulate the clear reasons and objectives that they were getting into this. I mean, it's been a muddle. And I think this is important on a few different levels. One is the messaging to the American public that is very skeptical of what's happening overseas. And as it has become clear how unpopular this is, you've seen Trump sort of try to wind it back. The price is going up as a result of this, this war with Iran. So, some of the messaging is to the U.S.

There's also another level of messaging that I'm paying attention to, which is that to members of Congress. We've hit the 60-day threshold, maybe, maybe for this conflict. And while, you know, as we've discussed on the show before, you should never bet on Republicans turning on Trump. There are a few members, especially in the Senate of the Republican Party, who are a bit concerned about how much longer is this going to go.

And so, I'm also listening to some of this messaging of it's over. The operation has ended. And I'm wondering if the subtext is to Congress.

CORNISH: Yes. And to your point Secretary of State Marco Rubio did say yesterday, look, Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We have achieved the objectives of that operation. We've heard that word objectives is doing a lot of heavy lifting the last couple of weeks, whether that is about not having a nuclear weapon, destroying ballistic missiles, sinking the Navy. But I want to play for you guys, Democratic Senator Jack Reed. And his reasoning for why he has doubts.

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SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Suddenly in the middle of it, he blurted out, well, the war's over. It's not over. And that's not the typical way one announces the end of military hostilities. That's not the way to conduct military hostilities. diplomatic operations or any other serious types of operations. And we're in a situation which I don't think even the president and his cabinet understand where we're going and what's the next step.

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CORNISH: What I appreciated about this is he made the distinction between military and diplomatic. And I do think by many measures, Operation Epic Fury, the military operation, has had success against Iran. It's literally everything else everyone has questions with now.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND CO-FOUNDER/EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Sure. In the sense of like the Normandy landing ended at a certain point.

CORNISH: Yes.

GOLDBERG: And the war didn't, right. And Operation Epic Fury, you can clear this sort of thing that that operation is over. But as long as you have an embargo of another country, an embargo is an act -- blockade is an act of war. It is under international law. As long as we're doing that, we're still at war. I think what we're seeing -- and I agree largely with Tal here, I think that a lot of what we're seeing is sort of like, you know, the hip pop-up restaurants that show up for like five minutes and then go away.

CORNISH: How are you going to land this plane, Jonah?

GOLDBERG: We're going to get pop-up like legal fictions about, oh, this operation's over, so therefore, the clock starts again on the war power stuff and all that kind of stuff. And they're just going to rename things, different things, sort of the way Trump plays games with predators.

CORNISH: Do they kind of have to, because at this point, it's pretty clear that to get to the Strait being clear again at a basis, you're going to have to make some kind of compromise. It has not been clear that the diplomatic path ends without compromise.

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: What's clear is that Iran does not fear Donald Trump, and they do not fear his posts on social media. I don't think this war of choice has been beneficiary to anyone, including everyday Americans who are feeling the effects of it from at the gas pump to groceries, goods, services and basic necessities.

What I do know is that at some point the Congress, controlled by Republicans, are going to have to rein in the executive branch of government when it comes to things like decisions that have been made around this war of choice. I would also note that we should pay attention to the language that's been used throughout this episode, if you will. It started out as a conflict. Then it went to war. Now, we're back to the words conflict. I don't think that's an accident.

CORNISH: I think it was a diversion at one point?

SEAWRIGHT: I don't think that's an accident. I think there's strategic reasons why the secretary of state, the secretary of war, and the president are all starting to change their language on how we talk about this. And I think that's noteworthy for us to pay attention to.

GOLDBERG: I mean, a few weeks ago, President Trump just basically said the quiet part out loud. He said, it's a war. I call it a war, but I call it an operation. We call it an operation because, like we need to for Congress. And like --

CORNISH: Well, there it is. That's your answer.

SEAWRIGHT: The speaker was very declarative for weeks -- for a few days a week, saying this was not a war. Now, all of those things have changed.

CORNISH: Well, they have to deal with the reality of the legislation.

SEAWRIGHT: That's why. CORNISH: I think the question is, what is the reality in the Strait and the regional politics? We're going to talk more about that, especially given some of the reporting we've been hearing about Iran and its visit to China, the diplomatic conversation there.

I want to follow up on one other thing that we're going to talk about in a bit, Trump's ballroom, which he said was going to be paid with private money, that taxpayers wouldn't be charged for it. And yet, somehow there is talk of a billion dollars in federal money slipped in to some congressional legislation.

And then the pope and the president are at odds again. So, could this be yet another job for Marco Rubio to take on? And multiple incumbents in Indiana who did not fall in line on redistricting struggle against Trump-backed candidates.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the idea that the government should be able to draw new maps any time it wants, not after a census, takes power from the people and gives it to the government, and that's far from conservative.

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CORNISH: So, it looks like President Trump got his revenge in Tuesday's Indiana primaries and it is proving that it's still his Republican Party. Last night, at least five of the seven Trump- endorsed challengers defeated incumbent GOP state senators in Indiana, and these are the ones who had broken with the president and voted against the redistricting plan. Indiana Senator Jim Banks wrote on Twitter big night for MAGA in Indiana, proud to have helped elect more conservative Republicans to the Indiana State Senate.

I wanted to follow up on this. It's a coda to a story, because back in December, when Indiana was looking at its redistricting maps, and I want to put up the map for you, this is the map that Trump wanted, that Republicans wanted in this redistricting battle, OK? The goal was to get rid of those little blue spots there. And a couple of people pushed back. In the end, the Republicans didn't go for it, and there was a lot of political writing that was like, cracks in the coalition? This is people writing. People really thought, look at this. It means something. I don't know if it did.

GOLDBERG: Well, no, I think it meant something, but the blowback also means something, right?

CORNISH: Yes.

GOLDBERG: You know, Mitch Daniels and a bunch of sort of normie Republicans working behind the scenes.

CORNISH: I love that you call them normie.

GOLDBERG: Yes. At least he's not a closet normie.

CORNISH: Yes. He's out and proud.

[06:15:00]

GOLDBERG: He's out and open about his normies. But the -- you know, part of the reason why a lot of those state senators didn't want to do the redistricting has to do with not wanting to be part of Indianapolis. I mean, it was like real local stuff.

CORNISH: It was state politics, yes, which arguably is the whole point of the redistricting conversation.

GOLDBERG: And the revenge stuff has nothing to do with state politics. It is purely to signal that Trump still has a chokehold on the party, that he's not going to be a lame duck, and that even if he lose -- even if Republicans lose the House, you better not cross him because he could still screw you.

KOPAN: It's a chokehold on the Republican base, right? So, this is the thing. Primary elections are your most activated, your sort of most true party members. And this certainly is a declaration to anyone in Washington who sort of wants to have some daylight with the president heading into the midterms. But we can also see Trump is underwater with sort of the overall electorate. And it really puts Republicans in a bind because you know that if you have to face -- I mean, we've got Bill Cassidy's election coming up in Louisiana very soon. They're facing a situation where if they cross Trump, if they cross the base, they're at very real risk of losing their primary, even with local, you know, elections.

SEAWRIGHT: No doubt the MAGA extremists have hijacked the Republican Party and they make up the majority. We see that in Washington, we see that downstream. But I think we have to understand who votes in primaries. Some of the most extreme members, particularly on the Republican side, tend to participate more in Republican primaries. That's been true since Donald Trump came onto the scene in 2016.

I will also note that more and more people are becoming independent thinkers and independent voters. So, that means you have less traditional Republicans voting in Republican primaries. Instead, they're saving their vote for the general elections where they do not have to be politically associated with the MAGA extremists who now make up the majority of the Republican Party.

KOPAN: But how does a politician navigate that?

CORNISH: Yes.

KOPAN: You can't win the general if you lose your primary.

CORNISH: I'm also going to use slightly different language, like when we're saying hijack and chokehold. My thing with that is that these are voters. They have made a decision. They are committed to Trump and they feel that commitment supersedes all other issues. And I don't feel like they don't know what they're doing. You know what I mean? Like this is what they want.

GOLDBERG: They have agency. But look, I mean, I'm someone who thinks we made a grave mistake adopting the primary system to begin with. And it's really hobbled American politics. But we have it. And -- but there's a lot of political science on this. A lot of primary voters don't so much vote for their own parties, they vote against the other party.

And the problem -- the reason why this is Trump's superpower is that, particularly low turnout primaries, this is the only place where incumbents are vulnerable.

CORNISH: Right.

GOLDBERG: If all of these guys had won their primaries, they would be re-elected. If Cassidy gets the nomination, he will be re-elected. The threat to Republicans in very red states and the threat to Democrats in very blue states and districts is the primaries, not the general election.

CORNISH: Let me end it there, because we're going to have a good, robust conversation about what's going on in some of the other states. Ohio, California, there were a lot of elections last night. There is this -- also this news that we're following this morning. A manhunt underway for a Special Forces veteran accused of trying to kill his wife. How the terrain and the veteran's skills may make that more challenging.

Plus, Trump and Xi set to meet in just days. Are there unresolved issues that China can help with when it comes to Iran? And good morning to our viewers in Colorado. You're waking up to this. A spring snowstorm dumped nearly two feet in some mountain areas, forcing dozens of school districts to cancel classes, including in Denver. It's gorgeous, though. It's beautiful.

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CORNISH: All right. It's now 22 minutes past the hour. Here are five things to know to get your day going. There is a suspect who's on the run allegedly after attacking and shooting his wife in Tennessee. Now, the search for him is complicated given that he has Army survival training, and he's now fled into the woods. His wife is now recovering from a neck wound. The 53-year-old suspect was last seen wearing camouflage clothing. Police say he is armed with a rifle.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's trying to run. Oh, my God.

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CORNISH: This driver has been arrested after allegedly attempting to hit a child on a bike. You can see the driver speeding on the sidewalk in their car as the child rode in front of her. Now, this boy was not harmed. Police say the woman denies any recollection of chasing the child on the sidewalk. She has been charged with a DUI and first- degree assault.

We're now getting a look inside the Obama Presidential Library during an interview taped at the new building with Stephen Colbert. Obama says he hopes the library will put his presidency in context.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I assume in my eulogy somewhere it'll be mentioned he was the first African American president.

STEPHEN COLBERT, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": I will say something about that.

OBAMA: But what I want people to understand is that there was this extraordinary journey this country took to get to that point.

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CORNISH: The Obama Presidential Library officially opens in Chicago on June 19th. And CNN is projecting former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will win the Republican primary for Ohio governor.

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VIVEK RAMASWAMY, REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR OHIO GOVERNOR: I will never quit on Ohio. We will always do the work required to make the best decisions required to deliver you lower costs, bigger paychecks, better schools, to deliver you a revival of that American dream that I know exists.

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[06:25:00]

CORNISH: He's going to face Democrat Amy Acton, Ohio's former health director. And the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is heading home tomorrow. He will meet with the Pope as -- tomorrow. He will meet with the Pope as the feud between the president and the Holy Father heats back up.

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TRUMP: I think he's endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But I guess if it's up to the Pope, he thinks it's just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

POPE LEO XIV (through translator): If anyone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so with the truth. The church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, so there is no doubt.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CORNISH: Now, Rubio denies that he's on some kind of mission to improve relations with the Vatican. Maybe he just doesn't want another job. I don't mean that jokingly, like he's kind of busy with some other things. How much longer can the president keep lobbing softballs at Pope Leo?

GOLDBERG: Some of them weren't too soft. Look --

CORNISH: Well, I mean, Leo's hitting him back.

GOLDBERG: Yes. I think none of this -- this is going to change absolutely nothing. I think Rubio will have a perfectly nice meeting with the Pope. He'll say some nice things. The Pope will say some nice things. And then if Trump -- because Trump is convinced that when the Pope popes, right, the Pope is going to pope. That's what they do. They talk about peace and they want an end of war and all that kind of stuff. And they talk about the plight of the downtrodden, the immigrants. And when he says that stuff, Trump reads it as a personal attack on him.

CORNISH: Right.

GOLDBERG: And that's going to continue. And so, I just don't think he's going to change anything.

SEAWRIGHT: The president knows he's the distractor in chief. And so, the more fights he picks with the Pope and any other person and the media is distracted by it, the more it takes away from the conversation really facing our country and facing the world. He knows that. He also -- I think he also knows that the Pope has a bigger profile than him. And so, I think it's more he's high off his own supply at this point.

KOPAN: I don't think he likes people he can't intimidate. And like the Pope, he cannot intimidate. So, he could keep picking this fight forever.

CORNISH: And as people always mention, Pope Leo is from Chicago. Straight ahead on CNN This Morning, evacuations are underway. Of course, there is this rare Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're having active discussions with several different countries who want to be able to welcome that boat.

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CORNISH: So, does removing passengers put the rest of us at risk? We're going to talk to a doctor next. And as we go to break, I'm going to show you this video from Hawaii, a volcanic eruption. Lava fountains shouting -- shooting 650 feet into the air Tuesday morning.

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