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Thailand: Second Day Of Fighting Along Border With Cambodia; Report: Trump Likely To Be Greeted By Protests In Scotland; Trump And Powell Clash Over Cost Of Fed Renovations. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired July 25, 2025 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've also been monitoring videos of the type of weaponry that's been used in these clashes. The Thai military -- they've been using F-16 fighter jets against Cambodia as well as drones.
And in this next video you're going to see the use of a Thai drone being dropped on top of a munitions storage -- a weapons facility in Cambodia. Now, we were not to verify this video. Separately, we learned from the Cambodian military earlier today they were accusing the Thai military of using banned cluster bombs. And CNN has reached out to Thailand and to the Thai military for comment on that.
Now look, this violence has been affecting villagers from both sides of the border who are fearing for their safety and for their lives.
I want you to listen to this 45-year-old mother of four in Cambodia who witnessed one of these clashes. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It was about 8:00 this morning. Suddenly I heard a loud noise. My son told me it might be thunder, and I thought is it thunder or is it loud -- more like a gun? At that time I was very scared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STOUT: So Thailand and Cambodia have a long and very complicated relationship, and they have this long-shared land border that is about 500 miles long. It has long been a source of military tension as well as political upheaval.
Back to you, MJ.
MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Kristie Lu Stout, thanks for that update.
STOUT: Thank you.
LEE: Plus, remembering a legend. How Hulk Hogan shaped pro wrestling and the legacy that he leaves behind. That's next.
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[05:36:15]
LEE: He was best known for that never-fading tan, his famously pumped up body, and his signature shirt-tearing routine. Hulk Hogan has died at the age of 71. He was pronounced in hospital after emergency crews responded to his home in Florida to reports of someone having a cardiac arrest.
Born Terry Bollea, Hogan was widely recognized as the biggest wrestling star of all time. In the 1980s and the '90s he helped shape World Wrestling Entertainment into the behemoth that it is today. Hogan is also known for this politics -- an avid Donald Trump supporter. He even appeared on the last night of the Republican National Convention last year.
Police say his death is not considered suspicious, but an investigation is ongoing.
Stay with us on CNN. We'll be right back.
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[05:41:35]
LEE: Welcome back. I'm MJ Lee. Here are some of the stories we're watching today.
President Emmanuel Macron says France will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the U.N. General Assembly. Israel and the U.S. have condemned the decision as rewarding Hamas and setting back peace, but Macron says a two-state solution must be achieved as quickly as possible.
There will be a second day for questions for Ghislaine Maxwell today from the U.S. deputy attorney general. Maxwell is serving 20 years in a Florida prison for grooming and trafficking underaged girls for late financier Jeffery Epstein. The meeting comes as pressure is building on the Trump administration to be more transparent about the Epstein files.
And in just a few hours President Trump will take off for a golf getaway in Scotland and talks with British prime minister, but there is no indication he'll fully escape the firestorm over the Jeffrey Epstein files as there are growing demands for their release.
And Peter Walker is a senior political correspondent for The Guardian, and he is with us live from London. Peter, great to have you here.
I know you're getting ready to cover --
PETER WALKER, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE GUARDIAN: Thank you.
LEE: -- Trump's arrival to Scotland. And you report that the president is likely to be met with a wave of protesters. Tell us why. WALKER: Well, I mean, he will be met by protests. He probably won't
see many of them because the police in Scotland -- they're going to make sure he's kept a long way away from them. And, in fact, he'll be mainly on golf courses. It will obviously make life easier. They've been building big fences around one of the golf courses he's going to be at to keep the protesters away.
The reason why is quite simple. In the UK he's not a particularly popular man. The polling shows that he's a very recognized person. When they did the polls 99 percent of people say that they know who Trump is. But in terms of whether they like him, about 70 percent of the British people say they don't. And in terms of whether they think he's doing a good job about two-thirds say he's -- they think he's doing a really, really bad job. So he's just not a particularly popular person.
LEE: Let's take a look at the front page of The National. This is a Scotland newspaper.
WALKER: Oh, here it is.
LEE: The headline is "Convicted U.S. Felon To Arrive In Scotland," which is obviously quite inflammatory. Of course, that's just one news outlet. But, you know, Trump has family roots in Scotland. His late mother was born and raised in Scotland.
Is there any sense among the Scots that a Trump visit is kind of a homecoming? That Trump is one of their own.
WALKER: I'm sure there is some sense of that. I mean, it's a difficult one because having the president of the most powerful nation in the world claim your own relatively small country is being where they're from -- that is quite a big thing, and I'm sure there will be some people who feel a certain pride in that.
But at the same time the news is so intense at the moment and there will be a lot of people out. I mean, it's possible there will be fewer people protesting than when he last visited Scotland in 2019. It's difficult to say.
One of the strange things about it is that this is not an official presidential visit; this is a private one. So quite a lot of British and Scottish people don't necessarily know that he's going to be coming so it remains to be seen how big the protests crowds are actually going to be.
[05:45:00]
LEE: Yeah. As you just said, this is primarily going to be a visit to Trump's golf resorts, but he is still expected to see the U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Obviously, no shortage of issues for them to discuss.
What do you expect to come out of those talks?
WALKER: I think Keir Starmer is going to want to talk about trade. He's very, very keen to get this U.S.-U.K. tariff reduction deal pinned down. He's going to want to talk about Ukraine.
I think Gaza will inevitably come to the fore. Starmer is under an enormous amount of pressure from his MPs and the public over the scenes in Gaza that we're seeing with people basically starving. And there is only so much the U.K. can do and there is a recognition that if anything is going to change the U.S. has to push things. So I would imagine that will come up.
But, you know, as with any meeting involving President Trump, it can be a slightly freewheeling meeting. You don't quite know how it's going to go.
And there should be some kind of press interaction because the president has got the U.S. Press Corps with him. So we expect some U.K. press to be there at the start of the meeting. So we might have one of those slightly kind of interesting question-and-answer sessions. You might get more of a sense of that.
LEE: Yeah. Often, very interesting Q&As with reporters no matter where the president is traveling.
As you know very well, on this side of the pond in Washington, D.C. there has been quite the scandal and controversy around Jeffrey Epstein. The president's trip to Scotland comes at a moment when he really would welcome any distractions.
And I'm curious to ask you whether people in Scotland are following that controversy much.
WALKER: I think people are following it in the sense that any news that big, which involves the president of the USA, is big news anywhere around the world.
LEE: Um-hum.
WALKER: There is obviously the U.K. angle to it. Ghislane Maxwell is a British national -- she was a British national. Prince Andrew was linked to this. Obviously, though, he denies that he did anything wrong. So there is this kind of British link to it and there this very much general interest of anything that goes on.
It's not particularly big new but it could become big news if at the spray when the U.S. reporters shout questions at him if anything comes from that because that will be shown on the TV in the U.K.
LEE: Peter Walker, thanks so much for your perspective.
WALKER: A pleasure. Thank you.
LEE: And the feud between President Trump and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was on full display Thursday. The two men clashed on just how much it's going to cost to renovate the central bank's headquarters in Washington.
CNN's Brian Todd has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well guys, the renovation of this building has just turned into a royal political battle between President Trump and Fed chair Jerome Powell, and that battle just seemed to heat up on Thursday with a publicly viewed tour of this building.
First, let me show you what a $2.5 billion renovation looks like. Our photojournalist Jake Shires (PH) is going to zoom in and you can see some of the features of this renovation. You see the scaffolding on the right and on the left. You see the tarps coming down on the right. You see the cranes over there, the cherry pickers. The air conditioning hoses going into the middle of the building for the construction workers.
We also got some really interesting video during a media tour of the facility going to places where only construction workers could go before this. We saw workers in hazmat suits navigating the interior of the building. We saw stone being placed on the framework both inside and outside in the interiors and exteriors. We saw the original skylight of the building, which is above the main entrance hall. That's also being restored.
And we got some new information about some of the things that are driving up costs for this renovation. This coming from Fed officials. They say that they are installing some security features like blast- resistant windows, as part of security upgrades for this building. And things called progressive collapse measures to prevent the building from collapsing all at once if there's some kind of an explosion. Those security features are driving costs up.
Now, Fed officials say that the renovation of this building was long overdue because these buildings were completed in the 1930s. They had never had a serious renovation until this. They said the electrical grids, the HVAC, the plumbing, the fire detection systems were all horribly antiquated.
Well, President Trump also got a tour of this building on Thursday, and he had Jerome Powell along with him. They got into somewhat of a bizarre public argument about the cost of the building. Take a listen.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It just came out.
JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed.
TRUMP: It just came out.
REP. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Our notes added about 3.1 as well.
TRUMP: Three-point-one.
SCOTT: Three-point-one or 3.2.
POWELL: This came from us?
TRUMP: Yes. I don't know who does that.
POWELL: Are you including the Martin renovation? You just added --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your entire capital --
POWELL: No, no. You just added -- you just added in a third building is what that is. That's a third building.
TRUMP: Well, I know, but it's a building that's being built.
POWELL: No. It's been -- it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This part is over (PH).
TRUMP: It's part of the overall work. So --
POWELL: No, it's not new.
[05:50:00]
TODD: So Powell there saying that Trump's $3.1 billion figure included a building that had already been completed awhile ago.
The cost overruns, we're told, are also due to things like removing more asbestos than anticipated originally, soil contamination, and inflation.
Back to you guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: We're learning new details about U.S. plans to deport unaccompanied migrant children as President Trump ramps up his crackdown on immigration. Sources tell CNN that federal agents have been directed to ask teenagers whether they want to voluntarily leave the country. Until now the option to self-deport was only given to children from Mexico and Canada.
Meanwhile, ICE agents detained a Maryland pastor and father of three for overstaying his visa. The family of Daniel Fuentes Espinal says he has no criminal record. Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims he entered the U.S. on a six-month visa but stayed for 24 years. Espinal is set to appear at his first hearing later today.
A high-stakes ruling in a Canadian sexual assault case is sending shockwaves through the world of ice hockey and far beyond. Five former Canadian junior players who went on to play in the National Hockey League -- they were found not guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in 2018.
A female judge rendered the verdict. She said she did not find the alleged victim's testimony to be credible or reliable.
The accuser's attorney says her client is very disappointed by the ruling and feels she was mocked and insulted during cross-examination. It's not clear whether there will be an appeal.
And "SOUTH PARK" came out swinging at its parent company Paramount and President Donald Trump. What happened on the show's season premiere -- that's next.
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[05:56:20]
LEE: U.S. financials are looking to end the week on a positive note. Let's take a look at the U.S. futures. The Dow futures and the S&P 500 both are up slightly. And as you can see there, the Nasdaq futures is in the red ever so slightly.
The Trump administration is formally approving and has approved the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media. The move follows allegations that the companies tried to curry favor with the president by settling a lawsuit and making programming changes at Paramount- owned CBS.
The creators of "SOUTH PARK" are skewering both sides. The Paramount- owned show's season premiere aired on Wednesday and at one point depicted Donald Trump in bed with Satan. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP CHARACTER: Ah, Satan.
SATAN CHARACTER: I'm not in the mood right now. Another random (bleep) commented on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list.
TRUMP CHARACTER: The Epstein list? Are we still talking about that?
SATAN CHARACTER: Are you on the list or not? It's weird that whenever it comes up you just tell everyone to relax.
TRUMP CHARACTER: I'm not telling everyone to relax. Relax, guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: The White House is criticizing "SOUTH PARK" and describing the episode as a desperate attempt for attention, but the show is extremely popular.
CNN's Harry Enten runs the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Well, the long-running show "SOUTH PARK" and President Donald Trump butting heads -- going at it after "SOUTH PARK's" premiere on Wednesday night took it to the current President of the United States. And, of course, Donald Trump gave it right back to "SOUTH PARK" calling it a "fourth-rate show." My goodness gracious.
But if there's nothing more that shows like than controversy because oftentimes it pays back in interest. And that is no exception in this particular situation because Google searches for "SOUTH PARK" up like a rocket ship -- up 670 percent versus last week. And the top topic search with Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon -- get this -- was, in fact, "SOUTH PARK," displacing the long-running top topic search alongside Donald Trump's name -- that, of course, being Jeffrey Epstein.
Of course, one of the things that "SOUTH PARK" pulled last night was parent company Paramount after Paramount, of course, which owns CBS decided to end the long-running "THE LATE SHOW" with, of course, Stephen Colbert.
But one of the things that I think is so important is that while Stephen Colbert hated by Republicans, "SOUTH PARK" actually has more fans among Republicans than people who dislike the show. What are we talking about? The net popularity rating with the GOP -- you can see it here.
Stephen Colbert way, way underwater at minus-35. But look at "SOUTH PARK" at plus-two. Ergo, there are plenty of Republicans who might have watched "SOUTH PARK" on Wednesday night and might have liked or perhaps disliked the message, but they weren't just preaching to the choir as Stephen Colbert often did.
Now, as I mentioned earlier on, Donald Trump called "SOUTH PARK" a "fourth-rate show."
But here's the thing to keep in mind. "SOUTH PARK" actually pretty gosh darn popular. What are we talking about? Well, "SOUTH PARK's" success. It is the longest-scripted show on cable television but in this era of streaming -- get this -- "SOUTH PARK" through the middle part of this year, a top 20 show. And, of course, that doesn't even take into account last night's episode. I wouldn't be surprised if "SOUTH PARK" rises even higher into the top 10.
So the bottom line is Donald Trump may not have liked last night's episode of "SOUTH PARK" but they were speaking to a lot of folks.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: San Diego Comic-Con opened its doors Thursday to tens of thousands of self-professed nerds; some dressed in costumes. Considered the world's number one pop culture convention, Comic-Con attracts large crowds to see A-list celebrities speak on panels.
[06:00:00]
This year, Hollywood's star power is notably absent, but fans aren't deterred. This convention's lineup includes panels for movies "Predator," "Badlands," and "Tron: Ares." And "Star Wars" creator George Lucas will make his Comic-Con debut as well.
The convention runs through Sunday. Thank you so much for joining me here on EARLY START. Have a great day. I'm MJ Lee in Washington, D.C. And "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.
