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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Ukraine Strikes Russian Air Bases Ahead Of Peace Talks; Big Brands And Retail Chains Pull Back On Public LGBTQ Support; Witness Describes Aftermath Of Attack On Jewish Gathering. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 03, 2025 - 05:30   ET

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

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): -- 100 kilometers away from Ukraine where Google Earth still shows similar propeller of an aircraft in the open, but they also struck Kalina right on the Arctic Circle. Similar planes, also on Google, another example of something that just was not meant to happen in Russia's brutal war of choice.

The how was as extraordinary. Ukraine's security service head Vasyl Malyuk commenting here --

VASYL MALYUK, UKRAINIAN MILITARY OFFICER (through translator): How beautiful it looks, this airbase Belaya.

WALSH (voiceover): -- and releasing these images of the wooden mobile homes they used -- the roof cavities of -- to hide the drones.

Before their release, once, Ukraine said all their operatives were out of Russia. The planes hit -- mainly the Tupolev 95 and Tupolev 22 -- a Ukrainian source said aging, easy to damage, hard to replace. They were partly behind the nightly terrors that beset Ukrainian civilians.

Whether these strikes make a dent in this daily toll will take weeks to learn but it may also damage the Kremlin quicker away from the front line. Its pride hit hard, although state TV put on a fierce display of why Russia has been pummeling Ukraine so relentlessly. It may also too change its thinking perhaps towards peace talks that continued Monday in Istanbul and of how long Russia can sustain this war if Ukraine keeps throwing painful surprises its way.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Up next for us why many big brands in the U.S. are staying quiet this Pride Month.

We'll be right back.

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SOLOMON: Welcome back.

Pride Month is here, and some big brands have gone quiet. Certainly viewed as a major marketing opportunity but companies and retailers are now shying away from public support of the LGBTQ community. Companies toning down their pride displays include Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Nordstrom, the Gap.

A Gallup poll released last month finds that Democrat support for same-sex marriage remains strong. Republican support has dropped by 14 percent since 2022.

I want to now welcome in Luke Hartig who is the president of Gravity Research. He is with us this morning from Washington, D.C. Luke, great to have you this morning.

Pride Month, every June, it was a time of celebration of the LGBTQ community but as we just pointed out, retail chains and brands have been I think quieter about pride.

Talk to us about your research and who they've been scaling back.

LUKE HARTIG, PRESIDENT, GRAVITY RESEARCH: Yeah, great to be with you, Rahel.

This is absolutely a dynamic we have seen building over the last couple of years as LGBTQ issues have just become more politicized. And indeed, we did a survey of top executives at companies who are responsible for corporate reputation. These are heads of communications, heads of corporate affairs. And what they tell us is that 65 percent of them fear backlash from pride this year.

And so how are they responding? Thirty-nine percent of our respondents tell us that they are decreasing their overall engagement. Forty-one percent say no change. But interestingly, nobody said that they are actually increasing their pride engagement this year.

SOLOMON: Interesting.

Is it a coincidence -- I hear you say this has been a trend for the last few years, but is it a coincidence that this is continuing to happen during the administration? You know, we know Trump is cracking down on DEI initiatives. What were the reasons for the pullback, according to your research?

HARTIG: Yeah, so it is no coincidence. However, I would say there's two things happening here.

One, we've seen companies engaging less on a whole range of societal issues going back to the heyday after the murder of George Floyd, for example, when it felt like companies were active on a broad range of issues. So we've seen a general decline in engagement on all matters of societal issues. That's true, by the way, this year for Black History Month. We saw less engagement last year and less engagement than the year before that. The same thing with Women's History Month.

However, all of these forces have really been amplified in the Trump administration partly because of the administration's focus on DEI -- and not just DEI in the -- in the federal government. They're actually going after private sector DEI and trying to get companies to roll back these efforts.

So when we asked our survey respondents how they felt about the stakeholders who were pressuring them, 61 percent of them said that one of the top sources of pressure that they were feeling was the new administration, and 39 percent of them said that consumer -- excuse me, that conservative activists and consumers were also a huge driver of their decisions to roll back pride this year.

SOLOMON: Really interesting.

Luke, I wanted to ask you something because I know Gravity Research helps companies with risk management. And one thing that's just been really interesting to me when watching these companies the last few years, as you pointed out since the death of George Floyd, is that there is risk on both sides of the equation, right? I mean, you could sort of go strong on some of these causes and risk conservative backlash. You can sort of pull back on some of these causes and risk alienating some consumers there.

So what kind of advice are you sharing with companies about how best to navigate these waters and what's best for them?

HARTIG: Yeah, I'm glad -- I'm glad you brought that up because I think companies are in a really tough spot right now and pride is I think just the latest of a number of areas where there's a flashpoint. DEI and a range -- and a range of other issues are also particularly tricky for companies right now.

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And that's right. They feel absolutely at this moment a desire to uphold their commitment to have an inclusive culture where everybody feels involved and able to contribute to the company, including LGBTQ employees. And at the same time they are facing this immense fear of backlash when it comes to a really emboldened administration, conservative activists, and trying to figure out how to navigate those two, it's very difficult.

And I think ultimately a lot of it depends on the specific brand. If you're a brand that has shown a strong commitment to the LGBTQ community over the course of many years and perhaps they are -- that community is important to your consumer base as well as your employee base, then rolling back pride may not be smartest move this year. However, other companies are definitely thinking about this differently depending on how they look out at the broad range of stakeholders they're trying to manage.

But it is a very, very difficult -- it is a very difficult dynamic for companies to manage at this moment.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

And Luke, what did you make of the different responses when you looked at sort of how many -- the percentage of executives planning to pull back on sort of public displays versus internal engagements?

HARTIG: Sure.

SOLOMON: That number looked drastically smaller. I think it was 11 percent, 14 percent. We can pull this back up.

I mean, does this say anything to you about whether this is a real pullback on some of these commitments or whether it's a pullback on public-facing commitments for some of these causes?

HARTIG: Yeah, right -- yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the data certainly shows that the biggest risk that executives are grappling with is the external risk. And so how companies are trying to kind of thread this needle is overwhelmingly, companies tell us they are not rolling back their internal engagement. So what does that mean? They're actually working extensively with their employee resource groups, for example, representing LGBTQ employees to ensure that they have the opportunity to celebrate Pride Month. They're doing internal celebrations of employees.

However, when it comes to external engagement this is really where they see the risk. And, in fact, our data certainly shows that there is a pullback in that way where 37 percent of our respondents told us that they are decreasing their presence at pride parades and other pride celebrations external to the company, for example.

Thirty-four percent said that they are planning to decrease their engagement on social media. Things like turning their company logo into a rainbow.

So this is the dynamic where -- and hey, is there is a way that we can reduce this external engagement such that we're less likely to be criticized publicly while still affirming to our employees internally that we are going to continue to celebrate pride. We're going to give you resources to celebrate pride. We're going to lift up the voices of LGBTQ employees internal to our company.

SOLOMON: Yeah. It was a really interesting sort of survey response.

Luke Hartig of Gravity Research, appreciate you coming on to share it with us. Thank you.

HARTIG: Thank you, Rahel.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

All right. Still ahead for us disturbing details are emerging on what authorities are calling a targeted antisemitic attack. Ahead, what the suspect has told authorities and how witnesses are describing the aftermath in Boulder, Colorado.

And 18 years after Madeleine McCann disappeared why police in Portugal are planning new searches in the case when we come back.

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SOLOMON: Welcome back. I'm Rahel Solomon, and here are some of the stories we are watching today.

President Trump's big, beautiful bill heads to the U.S. Senate. It's full of measures to fund his domestic agenda and make good on his campaign promises, including massive tax and spending cuts. But several Republican senators are fearful of cuts to Medicaid and the food stamp program and have vowed to make changes to the bill.

Election results are expected in South Korea in the next few hours. Right now voters are deciding who will replace impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. You might remember he was removed from office after declaring martial law back in December. Lee Jae-myung, of the Democratic Party, is considered the frontrunner.

The White House says that President Trump will likely speak with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this week. China is accusing the U.S. of provoking new economic and trade frictions. Meanwhile, Trump claims that Beijing has violated a trade war truce agreed to last month.

All right, more details now about the attack on a Jewish gathering in Boulder, Colorado and the suspect accused of carrying it out. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, made his first court appearance on Monday. He's accused of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails on a group that gathered in support of the Israeli hostages in Gaza injuring 12 people.

Authorities have charged him with a hate crime. He's also facing 16 counts of attempted murder. He is scheduled to return to court on Thursday.

And we've been hearing harrowing accounts from those who witnessed Sunday's horrific attack in Boulder. One man who arrived just moments after the assault took video of the suspect and describes what he saw at the scene.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz has the story.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone needs to hear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody's going to finish it. Are you (bleep) out of your (bleep) mind?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron Brooks arrived on scene moments after the horrific antisemitic attack at a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado. Brooks returned to the scene for the first time with CNN.

PROKUPECZ: How does it feel to be here the day after? AARON BROOKS, EYEWITNESS: I'm not sure yet. This is the first I've been back. It's all cleaned up as you can see. You know, it's like these things happen and then people just move on with life. So I don't want to just move on.

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I want to make sure -- part of the reason I'm talking with you is I want to make sure that the truth is told, you know. I want to make sure that people know clearly this was an antisemitic attack. I was here. I heard what he said. I heard him clearly say "You're burning my people" or "You burnt my people."

PROKUPECZ (voiceover): He recounted those terrifying moments.

BROOKS: But you can actually see some burn marks here, I think. Look at that. Um, he -- it was -- you can -- you can -- I think you can maybe see some burn marks still over there. But he was standing right here, and this is where he was yelling.

At one point he flipped the top of one of his things and I was like holy (bleep). Oh my God. Is he going to do something with that? But I didn't back up when he did that at all. Again, I don't know what my instinct was or why I did that.

PROKUPECZ (voiceover): Brooks said he's attended many of these walks supporting Israeli hostages. He did not come out for Sunday's walk but eventually showed up.

BROOKS: I rode over here because I just felt like I need to go make sure my community is safe. I know that's not my job but who else is doing it, right? The police -- I do -- I figured the police probably weren't here. I immediately saw this guy standing here -- the guy here, smoke here, blood over here. Smoke coming -- literally from a human being.

JONATHAN LEV, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BOULDER JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER: People are devastated, horrified, traumatized.

PROKUPECZ (voiceover): Jonathan Lev is the executive director of the Boulder Jewish Community Center. He says he personally knows the victims, among them a Holocaust survivor.

LEV: How could you not be scared? How could you not have fear? Safety and security are a critical component of how we have to think about and respond to instances like this.

PROKUPECZ (voiceover): And that fear given way to anger.

BROOKS: I can't believe -- I actually can believe we live in a world where this happens. I have three kids. I have a 24-year-old, a 21- year-old, and a son that just graduated from high school. This is the world we're living -- they're living in. This is the world we're leaving them. We have a job to make it as good as we can for them, and this shouldn't happen. PROKUPECZ: As for the victims, two of them remain in the hospital. The Holocaust survivor -- she suffered some injuries to her leg, some burns to her legs. Her daughter was seriously injured and for now, that is where her focus is at. She's just trying to take care of her daughter. And as you can imagine, everyone in this community wants to hear from here. Wants to hear her story because she's a sense of strength for many of them in this community as they begin steps of coming together and healing.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Boulder, Colorado.

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SOLOMON: Police in Portugal say that they will carry out fresh searches near the resort where toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared 18 years ago. The 3-year-old disappeared from her bed while on vacation with her family in 2007.

Detectives, acting on a request from a German public prosecutor, will carry out searches this week in southern Portugal. The main suspect in the case if a German national.

FEMA staff were apparently caught off guard on Monday when the disaster agency's new acting leader told them that he was previously unaware that the U.S. had a hurricane season. Now, some people took David Richardson's comments as a joke, but it did prompt concerns in others about his qualifications. Richardson has no prior experience in disaster management, a recurring theme in many of President Trump's appointments in recent months.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security tells CNN that the comment was made in jest, adding, "FEMA is laser-focused on disaster response and protecting the American people."

All right. Still ahead for us, could your morning cup of coffee help fend off certain diseases? Well, that's what some researchers are saying. We'll have the piping-hot details coming up next.

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SOLOMON: Welcome back.

The maker of popular cookies Oreo and Chips Ahoy! is suing grocery chain Aldi alleging that Aldi's store brand snack packaging "blatantly copies its own." All right, take a look for yourself.

In the lawsuit, snack giant Mondelez says that the cookie and cracker packaging was likely to deceive and confuse customers. These are sort of side-by-side comparisons. Mondelez is seeking monetary damages as well as a court order to prevent Aldi from selling these cookie look- alikes and allegedly harming its brands.

All right. A new study suggests that women in their 50s could benefit from a daily cup of coffee. Researchers followed thousands of women over the course of 30 years who drank one to two cups of caffeinated coffee every day and they were found to be more likely to reach older age without any major chronic diseases. The women also showed signs of good cognitive, physical, and mental health.

Now, if you don't drink coffee, you don't exactly need to run to the nearest cafe just yet because experts say that the study is limited in its ability to link cause and effect since it was just observations.

But I have a feeling if you're up at 5:55 like we are you probably are drinking a lot of coffee as are we.

Geologists, meantime, say that a huge volcanic eruption on the Italian island of Sicily that forced tourists to flee for their lives on Monday has ended and the lava is cooling. Mount Etna began producing explosions overnight. The volcano then spewed hot lava until late evening. Now, everyone on the volcano has been evacuated safely.

Mount Etna is one of the world's most active volcanoes and receives 1.5 million visitors each year. Experts say this is its largest eruption since 2014.

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And a Colorado zoo is about to get a whole lot smellier. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has announced the birth of 14 skunks. Isabel gave birth to a litter of seven kits on May 5 and then two weeks later another skunk, Padfoot, gave birth to a litter of seven kits. The zoo says that the parents and the little ones are all healthy.

All right, on that cute note we'll leave it here. Thanks for joining us on EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.