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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump Expected To Sign Domestic Agenda Bill Today; The Death of Liverpool Star Diogo Jota; Garden Of Heroes. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 04, 2025 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:14]

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This mother says, what happened is terrifying, terrifying beyond imagination when you see them torn apart and injured. At 2:15 am, we woke up to this. I dragged my girls running downstairs.

Israel's military says it struck a key Hamas terrorist operating a command and control center in Gaza City, adding it took steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians. The United Nations said this week more than 60 schools have been hit since mid March. The desperate search for food again turned deadly, 25 were killed in central Gaza waiting for aid trucks when chaos broke out.

This eyewitness says we're not Hamas or Fatah. I'm just a civilian who wants to eat. And instead I find death. Fifteen more killed in Khan Yunis while waiting for food, according to a hospital spokesman close to a US backed Gaza Humanitarian foundation site. Lining up bodies ready for burial, the sand of raw grief is everywhere in Gaza.

Carrying loved ones on their final journey, asking why children are being killed in their sleep. They went out to find food and water and they died, this man said. What use is their bag of flour? The bag of flour is soaked with blood.

As Hamas and Israel appear to edge closer to a ceasefire, that day will come too late for more than 80 killed in just this one day. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Abu Dhabi.

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MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump says last month's strikes on Iranian nuclear sites have been a boost to the Abraham Accords. The US President says that since the strike, several Arab countries are interested in normalizing relations with Israel. Morocco, Sudan, Bahrain and the UAE already signed onto the agreement, and Washington is pushing hard for Saudi Arabia to join them. President Trump says he expects to hear from Tehran at some point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: Iran does want to speak and I think they'd like to speak to me. And it's time that they do. We're not looking to hurt them. We're looking to let them be a country again. They got beat up and, you know, they were both exhausted, frankly. But Iran really got beat up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Coming up on Early Start, inside the effort to get President Trump's mega bill across the finish line. The role that Trump himself played just ahead. And the death of 28-year-old Liverpool star Diogo Jota has stunned the soccer world. We have a live report from Liverpool just ahead.

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[04:37:40]

LEE: President Trump is set to welcome US military pilots who flew bombing missions over Iran to join him at the White House today. That's when he will sign his so-called Big Beautiful Bill into law. CNN's Arlette Saenz has those details.

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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is preparing to sign his domestic agenda bill on Friday after Republican leaders on Capitol Hill helped push it through to a final vote. That final vote came down to 218 to 214 votes, with only two Republicans voting no. And the bill will start to set in motion some key components of President Trump's priorities in his second terms.

It will extend the 2017 tax cuts and make good on some Trump campaign promises like ending tax on tips and overtime pay. It also boosts additional funding to the Defense Department and immigration priorities. But at the same time, it does include steep cuts to Medicaid.

That was one of the concerns that did face some more moderate Republicans as they were considering this bill. There were other more conservative Republicans who were concerned that this was going to add too much to the federal deficit. But ultimately, in a major feat not just for President Trump but also House Speaker Mike Johnson, they were able to corral enough support to get this bill across the finish line.

In talking to potential holdout members over the course of the past three days, many said that direct conversations with President Trump, either at the White House or via phone call here at the Capitol, is what helps seal the deal with their votes. Now, even as they were able to corral and stitch together that GOP support to pass this bill, there were two Republicans who voted against it, and that is Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Massie had opposed the initial iteration of this bill when the House had passed it in May, and he's already drawn the ire of President Trump, who has promised to primary him in the 2026 midterm elections. As for Fitzpatrick, he comes from a swing district in Pennsylvania, and said in the statement after the vote that the changes the Senate made to this bill related to Medicaid is what part of what prompted him to vote against this bill.

[04:40:03]

Now, these Republican lawmakers will have to go back to their home districts to try to sell this to constituents. And Democratic leaders have already signaled that they plan to make the cuts to Medicaid a center focus of their campaign push heading into the midterm elections. Polling has already shown that the American public is very skeptical of what has been outlined in the bill so far. And so, now Republicans will face that task of trying to sell it to their constituents.

But for the time being, Republicans are taking this moment to celebrate. President Trump is going to sign this bill as the Fourth of July holiday is being celebrated over at the White House, as now a key priority for his second term has made its way through Congress and will begin to be implemented as well. Reporting from the Capitol, Arlette Saenz, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Soccer fans across the globe are in mourning over the death of 28-year-old Liverpool and Portugal star Diogo Jota. He was killed Thursday in a car crash in Spain alongside his younger brother, Andres Silva. Jota had just gotten married two weeks ago. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

Since the news broke, there has been an outpouring of grief from fans and the wider soccer community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was so shocked. I sprung out of bed immediately and I couldn't believe it. I absolutely couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Enjoyed watching him on the beach for some reason.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Joining us now with more is CNN's Matias Grez in Liverpool. Such tragic news, Matias, that has really stunned the world tonight. Tell us about how the world of football has been reacting.

MATIAS GREZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, I'm sure as you can imagine, the overwhelming emotion over the last couple of days has been of grief. And if you look behind me, you'll be able to see the hundreds and hundreds of tributes that fans have been laying to Diogo Jota. Flags, soccer jerseys, scarves, handwritten notes.

And not just from fans of Liverpool, we've seen fans turning up in Manchester United shirts to pay their respects. And you'll be able to see the blue of Everton scarves and shirts specked through the red here. Two clubs typically considered huge rivals on the pitch with Liverpool. But off the pitch, I think that just goes to show how much Jota meant not only to the city but to the wider football community.

And speaking to fans yesterday, of course, he's loved here in the city for his exploits on the pitch. He was here for five years, scored 65 goals and won four major trophies. But really speaking to fans, it's Diogo Jota, the person that really resonated with people here in the city. Somebody from a humble background, hard working, family man, and I think a lot of the people in the city saw a lot of themselves in him.

And, of course, this tragic accident comes at a time when Jota really was at the peak of his career, both personally and professionally. Like you said earlier, he married his childhood sweetheart, the mother of his three young children, only 12 days ago. And only a few weeks ago won the Nations League with Portugal for the second time and celebrated a Premier League triumph with Liverpool, which of course makes this situation all the more tragic.

And Liverpool fans have experienced tragedy before. Here, often success and tragedy go hand in hand in the '80s. There was the Heysel and the Hillsborough Stadium disasters. And only a few weeks ago, when they were celebrating that Premier League title, there was a car that plowed into a group of people, injuring 79 of them.

So Liverpool fans once again are coming together and the wider football community to move forward again from tragedy.

LEE: Matthias Grez in Liverpool, thank you very much. Coming up next on Early Start, a look at the artists who are competing for a chance to have their statues included in President Trump's Garden of Heroes.

[04:44:13]

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LEE: There was a promise made by President Trump five years ago, which just got $40 million of funding from the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. But it faces a tight deadline in order to debut this time next year at the nation's 250th anniversary celebration. Some sculptors are vying to be part of Trump's Garden of American Heroes.

But as CNN Sunlen Serfaty reports, others are taking a pass.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BELARDO, ARTIST: This is an unfired clay maquette, or I call it a bozetto, which is the Italian term for a small model.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Artist John Belardo hopes to be chosen by the White House to turn this 8 inch model into an 8 foot statue.

BELARDO: It's a very strong base down triangle, a lot of movement going up in this direction. SERFATY: He's one of the many artists vying to create statues for the National Garden of American Heroes, Trump's personal project meant to debut at the nation's big 250th anniversary celebration next July.

BELARDO: What I'm hoping for is Herman Melville, which of course was the author of "Moby Dick."

[04:50:06]

SERFATY: But there are layers of uncertainty around the logistics of the project and whether it will come together, and misgivings about the President who has commissioned it, all turning the project into a controversial brew of art and politics.

What about those artists and some in the art community who are sending this out because they say, I do not want anything to do with it because it's related to President Trump?

BELARDO: Well, this will sound even more controversial, but politics makes us all stupid. I'm just going to be an artist, you know, and I'm not trying to get involved in politics.

SERFATY: While it's the talk of the art scene, there are questions over the ability to deliver statues in time without sacrificing quality.

MICAH SPRINGUT, FOUNDER, MONUMENTAL LABS: I think it'd be great if our government wanted to fund the arts fully and wanted to bring about an American renaissance.

LEE: Micah Springut runs this marble fabricator just outside of the Bronx in New York, where some of the statues could be made.

Two hundred and fifty statues, is that achievable in one year?

SPRINGUT: Oh, no, absolutely not. That's not in America. You can maybe get some of this stuff done in China really quickly, maybe not such a high quality.

SERFATY: There are major challenges to a project like this. The cost, the timeline, and even artists being able to get their hands on materials like this.

That's why Springut is already lining up the material now.

SPRINGUT: There's no time to actually go source the block from the mountains in Italy, so they're going to have to come to our workshop, see what we have, and pick from there.

SERFATY: They're going to say, OK, I want this.

SPRINGUT: Yes.

SERFATY: I want this. I want this.

SPRINGUT: Right. SERFATY: There's no time to get it from everybody.

SPRINGUT: There's no time. You'd wait two months for that to happen. You'd be -- you'd miss the deadline.

SERFATY: Others in the art world are sitting this out for now.

MELISSA WALKER, MARKETING DIRECTOR, CAROLINA BRONZE SCULPTURE: They just really hadn't thought this through.

SERFATY: Melissa Walker works at a bronze foundry in North Carolina.

WALKER: I'm afraid in less than a year's time, it's going to be a giant field and nothing much will be done. They haven't even picked a site yet, and they still have so much work to do to get the site ready to put sculpture in.

SERFATY: At least one place, South Dakota, is lobbying for the project.

TRUMP: We're picking the final sites now. It's between various states that want it very badly.

SERFATY: Drawing up this flashy proposal for a 40 acre patch of land in the shadow of Mount Rushmore. Unlike four US presidents, Trump envisions an eclectic mix of historical and modern figures.

TRUMP: We're going to pick the greatest people that this country has ever known.

SERFATY: Like Kobe Bryant, Amelia Earhart, Walt Disney, Muhammad Ali, Christopher Columbus, Alex Trebek, Sally Ride, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Whitney Houston, Steve Jobs and Shirley Temple, among others.

You're making this as something you see that will outlast President Trump, outlast this moment of controversy.

BELARDO: It's not who commissioned it, it's not even about me who made it. It's about the subject matter. It's about the ideals that we're trying to connect to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And the President's timeline for this project already appears to be slipping. A source with knowledge of the project tells me the new goal is to have now only a fraction of the statues, between 25 to 50 statues to be completed by July 2026. And have the rest, ultimately the total of 250 to follow years later. This is task admission that the project is at risk of becoming a collection of rushed mediocre art. One source saying that no one wants this to become an outdoor Madame Tussauds Museum. Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.

SERFATY: And now to a fireworks failure as we head into a long Fourth of July weekend where things got off to a bad start in Cape Cod.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LEE: Workers at this country club in Massachusetts ran for cover after the fireworks they were planning on for Friday night exploded early. Two people were hurt, one of them seriously, although the injuries are not believed to be life threatening. The man who shot this video says he's been coming to this fireworks show for 20 years, and he knew right away that something had gone wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a 3,500-year-old lost city. Researchers released drone footage Thursday showing the urban center of the city called Pinico. They think it was a trading hub that linked Pacific coast cultures with those in the Andes and the Amazon.

Pinico flourished around the same time as early civilizations in the Middle East and Asia. The city was close to where the corral society developed 5,000 years ago. They believe the city was a continuation of the Caral civilization after that group was devastated by climate change.

[04:55:00]

And in Madrid, they were celebrating Pride Week in heels, and I should say very high heels. Dozens of men and some women took part in the annual high heel race. A quick hundred meter dash in stilettos, dresses, feather boas and matching handbags. The shoes have heels about 15 centimeters or 6 inches, leaving some runners wobbling, bobbling and tumbling.

Other runners, though, were remarkably fleet-footed. Their secret is wrapping duct tape around the ankles for added stability on the cobblestones. Watching that makes me really nervous.

Thanks for joining us here on Early Start, I'm MJ Lee in Washington, DC. I'll be right back with more Early Start right after this break.

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