Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Pope Leo Meets Secretary Rubio in Vatican; Purported Epstein Suicide Note Unsealed by Judge; Commerce Secretary Lutnick Testified Before House Committee; CNN Founder Ted Turner Dies at 87. Aired 6- 6:30a ET
Aired May 07, 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]
BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: That does it for CNN Headline Express. I'm Brad Smith. CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Just into CNN, Marco Rubio's face-to-face meeting with Pope Leo is now underway. So, is this really a routine visit or a papal peacekeeping mission?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won't. And they've agreed to that, among other things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. We know what Trump thinks, but the world awaits Iran's response today. What will they say about the latest offer from the White House? And developing right now, a destructive tornado wipes out a community in Mississippi. This is a first look at the damage on the ground this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NY): When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we're taxing the rich.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. So, this video, let's say, has touched a nerve with some of New York's elite. Why one of them calls tax the rich a slur. And a global scramble underway to track passengers from this cruise ship. Who got off of the ship before a virus outbreak, and where are they now?
And we want to remember a media maverick, the legacy of CNN founder Ted Turner, pioneer of the 24-hour news cycle, and how we get our news today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: I wish God had made us just a little bit smarter, you know, but smart enough to where we didn't go to war with each other and practice cruelty on each other, if we were nice to each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, the U.S.'s top diplomat is in Rome right now. Though the White House denies this is a holy mission to get the president and the pope on the same page. We've got some questions. And good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Kornish. And this is where we start with the Secretary of State meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican. And that meeting is now underway. This is video from just a few moments ago. Rubio is arriving, shaking hands, and Rubio is among the many devout Catholics in this administration. Leo is America's first pope. And there has been historic tension between President Trump and the pope.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Is this an attempt to smooth things over with the pope, given the rhetoric between President Trump and Pope Leo?
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: No. No, I mean, it's a trip we had planned from before. And obviously, we had some stuff that happened. No, look, there's a lot to talk about with the Vatican.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. So, in the past, Trump has called Pope Leo weak on crime and said he should get his act together. And the attacks have gone on for the last couple of weeks. Here's a sample.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person.
Pope Leo said things that are wrong. I think he's very weak on crime and other things.
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.
As far as the pope is concerned, it's very simple. Whether I make him happy or I don't make him happy, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And he seemed to be saying that they can. And I say they cannot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: All right. Joining me now in the group chat, Jasmine Wright, White House correspondent with NOTUS and co-author of the NOTUS Morning Newsletter. Christopher Hale, publisher of the "Letters from Leo" Substack. Mike Dubke, former Trump White House communications director. And Meghan Hayes, former Biden White House director of message planning.
[06:05:00]
I have a couple of people here who are very helpful to this conversation. Obviously, Chris, you follow what's going on with the Pope. And I should say, you're a Democratic leaning, like you run for office at one point. So, what do you hear when the president tries to talk about Leo as a liberal person? And I ask because there have some developments leading up to day.
CHRISTOPHER HALE, PUBLISHER, "LETTERS FROM LEO" SUBSTACK: I mean, it's a remarkable thing to say about someone who opposes sex marriage, opposes abortion, opposes contraception. And Leo says it time and again, he's not a politician, he doesn't intend to get in fights with President Trump. And I really see it as a one-sided fight that the president has inflicted on Pope Leo. He doesn't want to get involved with this, but President Trump insisting.
(INAUDIBLE) the past week, he's gone after him again. I think it's remarkable that Marco Rubio says this is not a peace offering mission.
CORNISH: But the Vatican and the pope is ahead of state. So, what's happened in the last couple of days that you think has made this job harder for our top diplomat?
[06:05:00]
HALE: Well, I think that after the trip was announced, he goes on Hugh Hewitt and once again lies and says that Pope Leo wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon, saying that which is absurdity. I mean, Pope Leo has been consistent. He doesn't think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. The Catholic Church has opposed nuclear weapons for 60 years.
So, I think doubling down on that again yesterday, it makes Rubio's job much harder. The Vatican has pushed back each and every time the top diplomat for Pope Leo called the president's statement strange and absurdity just yesterday. So, I think the hope today is get a nice visual, then the smile, the shake hands like they did last May. But what's going to happen when Donald Trump's asked about Leo the 14th in the coming days? And if it's another negative comment, will that just ruin anything that's happened?
CORNISH: Yes. Well, let me let the rest of you guys jump in because obviously, this is a cabinet where there are many prominent Catholics. Biden, of course, was a Catholic. And at the same time, it's also a very religious and spiritual protecting administration. And so, the president is prone to like posting Jesus memes of himself, right? Like there are very much people within the Trump circle that talk in these terms. Can Rubio mitigate it?
JASMINE WRIGHT, CO-AUTHOR, NOTUS MORNING NEWSLETTER AND WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: Well, I think he's certainly going to try today. Obviously, we haven't seen Rubio travel as much as other secretaries of state. So, --
CORNISH: Well, he has 100 jobs. So, --
WRIGHT: He has a million jobs. CORNISH: Yes.
WRIGHT: And so, this is an important one for him. Obviously, he's a devout Catholic. But two weeks ago, I asked the president face to face, whether he believes that a comment that Pope Leo made was about him. And he kind of took the backseat and said that, again, Pope Leo thinks that Iran should have a nuclear weapon and I don't. And I heard from a lot of Catholics around the administration after that, who basically said to me, Pope Leo -- the Chicago Pope, might I add, Pope Leo is positive. I mean, is -- has a positive approval rating.
CORNISH: Chicago people are everywhere.
WRIGHT: Everywhere. Has a positive approval rating. And right now, Donald Trump does not.
CORNISH: We also --
WRIGHT: I'm questioning whether or not this is the fight.
CORNISH: I'm glad you said that.
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: We haven't had a Pope with a negative approval rating, though?
CORNISH: So, why test it?
DUBKE: I don't know.
CORNISH: No, I mean, just to me (INAUDIBLE).
DUBKE: This seems to me like, just a -- we've had -- we were coming up on the one-year anniversary of Leo's election.
CORNISH: Yes.
DUBKE: I think there's a lot of common ground between the -- could be a lot of common ground between the White House and the and the Vatican, especially in South America. And hopefully, Rubio will be expanding on that when it comes to Venezuela and when it comes to Cuba. I mean, I think we're making a lot a lot of this.
I don't think the president -- I mean, when --
MEGHAN HAYES, FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING: we're making a lot of this or the president's making a lot of this. Because he --
DUBKE: I think the president's making a lot of this. And I also think that the media is making a lot of this. I mean, there's always been this tension, except for the -- you know, that glorious time where you had John Paul II and Reagan and Thatcher saving the world. Other than that, there's always been this natural tension.
CORNISH: There is which is --
DUBKE: You've had it with Biden and the Pope back on abortion.
CORNISH: -- why Kennedy had to come out and give a speech about being a Catholic.
DUBKE: Exactly right, in West Virginia.
CORNISH: Here's what different, you have large numbers of young voters, especially conservative voters, moving to Catholicism, moving to a more traditional version of Catholicism that follows along with your Bannon's and your Peter Thiel's and all these people who have influence in the administration. I think that's why we care so much about what is this relationship Trump has with Catholics, because it's being wielded politically.
HALE: Well, I think that there's a confusion that Donald Trump made. I think he confuses Pope Leo XIV with Pope Francis. Pope Leo XIV is really popular among conservative Catholics in this country in a way that Pope Francis was not. I think the bigger issue actually, though, is going forward. J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, 2028 probable candidates, both Catholic.
To win this nomination in 2028, you have to win the Catholics and the evangelicals. They're not always on the same page. And I think that for any of the British at the bottom, it's going to be a difficult thing to do. I think the most remarkable thing that's going to happen today, though, is Marco Rubio, by standing in front of Pope Leo XIV, takes ownership, I think, of the Iran war. I think it's going to be what defines him going forward. And among MAGA Catholics, that is the biggest division they have with President Trump is on the war in Iran.
CORNISH: OK. Stay with us. Thank you so much for being here. You guys stay with me, because obviously we're going to hear more coming out about that meeting, which is underway now. But coming up on CNN, it's undated, unverified, unsigned. A judge releases a purported Jeffrey Epstein suicide note.
Plus, a violent tornado rocks parts of Mississippi. Let's talk about the damage there this morning. And there has been an FBI raid of a Virginia state Democrat who trolled Trump after a redistricting victory in that state. We're going to talk about whether this move from investigators is political revenge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have this high-profile raid happening just a few weeks after. So, a lot of people are going to say this is political.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:10:00]
CORNISH: OK. So, I want to talk about this suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein that has been unsealed by a federal judge. Now, this document is unverified, it is undated, it is unsigned. It was on the court docket in a case involving Epstein's former cellmate who told the writer and influencer Jessica Reed Kraus last year that he found it after Epstein's first attempted suicide and failed suicide in 2019.
[06:15:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICHOLAS TARTAGLIONE, EPSTEIN'S CELLMATE: It was in my book. Yes, when I got back into the cell, I opened my book to read and there it was, and he wrote it and stuck it in the book. And that was, I believe, the reason why he stopped saying, because he didn't want to go to suicide watch, because I think his first thing was, oh, yes, he tried to blame me for attacking him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, the note reads, through this handwriting, it says, they investigated me for months, found nothing, it is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye, not fun, not worth it.
So, I'm bringing in Alyse Adamson. She's a former federal prosecutor and host of the "At-Lyse You Heard It" podcast. And, Alyse, we should say, again, this is a suicide note, not the suicide note that people were talking about leading up to Epstein's actual death. So, how does this affect the world of, like, conspiracy theorists, especially when there's so little information around it?
ALYSE ADAMSON, HOST, "AT-LYSE YOU HEARD IT HERE" PODCAST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes, that's a great question, Audie. I mean, with conspiracy theorists, we never really know, right? But I think what's important here is that, it's just what you said, this is unsigned, unverified note that was purportedly found weeks before Epstein actually died.
What I think this note does is it's consistent with the public narrative that Epstein killed himself because it gives a window into the mind of how Epstein was feeling at that time. However, it is of limited value. Just because his cellmate is attributing it to Epstein, no one has said definitively that Epstein absolutely authored it. So, I think it undermines the conspiracy theories that something happened to Epstein, but it doesn't definitively disprove them either.
CORNISH: I also want to ask you about something really quickly. Howard Lutnick actually testified before a House Oversight Committee. It was behind closed doors. But Democrats asked him a lot about his relationship with Epstein. I just want to give you an example of how, their review of what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I expected him to say, well, you know, I regret what I said on the podcast. I should have been transparent about this incident with the family. Nothing happened that was terrible, but you know what, I should have had better judgment. And here are the things I know about Epstein. He was a disgusting person. Let me try to help in the investigation. He did none of that. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: This is a political process, not a legal one. For you, and I think within the legal community, what is of interest when it comes to people like Lutnick who had varying levels of interaction with Epstein?
ADAMSON: Well, it's interesting because from the reporting, it doesn't seem like Lutnick has implicated himself in any wrongdoing, nor has he been accused of any wrongdoing. And that is what the central question really is surrounding Epstein now, which is, were there any other bad actors here? I think for Lutnick, the problem is, has he been truthful in front of Congress?
Now, it's important to note that yesterday's hearing, he was not under oath. I think what's going to be interesting, now that there have been inconsistencies in his story, whether he's going to be hauled in again, put under oath, and then there'll be questions about his veracity. Because even though it's a political process, Audie, it is illegal, it is a crime to lie to Congress. So, we're going to have to see what happens there.
CORNISH: OK. Alyse, thanks for the clarity. I appreciate your time, as always.
And after the break on CNN This Morning, we're going to talk about that Hantavirus cruise ship that is heading to a new port. We're learning about evacuees who are landing here in the U.S.
Plus, we'll be remembering the pioneer of cable TV news, and look back at Ted Turner's legacy. And good morning to Jackson, Mississippi. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: I really don't think about myself that much in my past. I think about the future of humanity mostly. And what we're doing wrong and what we can do to correct what we're doing. And how I can influence that so that my children and grandchildren and yours will have a wonderful life, the opportunity to have a wonderful life the way we had.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, here at CNN and across the world, we are remembering a pioneer. Our founder, Ted Turner, has passed away. He died peacefully Wednesday, surrounded by his family. Ted Turner was 87 years old.
Now, Turner actually started CNN back in 1980. It was the world's first 24-hour news network. And the billionaire philanthropist would later say it was his greatest accomplishment other than his family. And those who worked here in the early days, they say, they could tell he was all in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: There was very little sort of barrier between him and us. Not that we were all friends and on first-name basis we worked for him. But we knew that he was absolutely in love with CNN, loved the creation that he made, and loved the impact that it was having.
JUDY WOODRUFF, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Ted managed to turn this into a significant player and, frankly, to change journalism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now is Lisa Napoli, journalist and author of "Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News." So, Lisa, first I just want to hear how you're feeling today after spending so much time learning about him and understanding his story. What did you think when you first heard of his passing?
LISA NAPOLI, AUTHOR, "UP ALL NIGHT: TED TURNER, CNN, AND THE BIRTH OF 24-HOUR NEWS": Of course, I was incredibly sad, as everyone ever involved with CNN was. He was so revered and such a fascinating character. And it's super surreal to be talking with you on CNN about CNN. Very strange. Yes.
[06:25:00]
CORNISH: I was looking into some of his past kind of commentary. And I want to play for you something he said about, like, his philosophy about how he thought about how the news could be presented on the network.
NAPOLI: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: I want to present both sides of controversial stories and let the viewers make up their mind rather than having Walter Cronkite make it up for you. Always recommending what people think. CNN didn't do that. We let people think for themselves. I figured that was the best way a democracy should be run.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Can you talk about that? Obviously, in the aftermath of the creation of CNN, you had other networks created specifically to present point of view. What do you think of sort of how his goal actually played out?
NAPOLI: Well, I think we forget the moment in time that when CNN started in 1980, all there were, were the three broadcast networks. And Reese Schonfeld, who co-created with Ted CNN back then, really wanted to open up the dialogue that the broadcast networks didn't allow because it was such a short period of time. How has it played out? Well, it's a complicated story, right? We're living it now. We're living the consequences now of everybody being on all the time. And what is news in 2026? But what Ted did was open up the gates and allow new voices in, which is, you know, ironically, something we discussed today as well. It wasn't discussed as much back then.
CORNISH: It's interesting. He always said he wanted the news to be the star. Ironically, now he has essentially made stars of people who do the news, right? Which is sort of an uncomfortable reality. Who are the Ted Turners of today? Meaning, are there some media figures who you think fit in his mold?
NAPOLI: I think he's a singular person, Audie. I mean, it's also important to remember that when CNN started, it was the only game in town as far as 24/7 went. And what happened 16, 17 years later with the introduction of new 24-hour networks, that changed the game for everyone. But yes, CNN was just plain, reliable news, a stream of news, back before we called it a stream of news.
And Ted was, there's no one like him. There never will be anyone like him again. He got away with things back then that no one would get away with now. And yet, he was the most charming and revered person. So, it's a very hard comparison to imagine any media titan in this day and age replicating what Ted did, because he worked at a particular moment in time with all of the resources that he could beg, borrow, and sort of steal to make it all happen. It's a totally different climate today. No one's like him.
CORNISH: OK. That's Lisa Napoli. Please check out her book. It's called "Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News." We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:30:00]
