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Jury Deliberating In Sean "Diddy" Combs Sex Trafficking Trial; Democrats Debate Lessons From Mamdani's Surge In NYC; Trump Threatens To Withhold Funding If Mamdani Doesn't "Behave"; Trump Admin: Harvard In "Violent Violation" Of Civil Rights Act; UVA President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 30, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:39]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Right now, jury deliberation is underway in the blockbuster sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs. 12 New Yorkers, 8 women, 4 men are contemplating the charges. One count of racketeering conspiracy. Two counts of sex trafficking, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

CNN Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates has been covering every moment of this seven-week trial. And Laura, obviously, the jury has so much to consider. The prosecution called 34 --

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

HUNT: -- witnesses in this trial. What did we hear from the judge? What was the jury instructed to focus on?

COATES: For hours this morning, the jurors were told what they need to have as their roadmap to guide them through the entire deliberation process. It took hours. Most of which -- with having to explain the different elements of things like RICO, a notoriously complex case.

They were talked about how they should engage with one another in the jury deliberation room. They also excused the alternate jurors who were told they can go home, but they have to still abide by the rules of not talking to people about this trial, not talking to their friends and family because they could be called at any time to actually deliberate.

But a lot of the jury instructions were all about things like what the elements ought to be or what they have been decided on by the parties to actually prove according to federal law. And also how they should judge a pseudonymed witness. There were several of them who used aliases.

Also, the decision to actually charge or investigate or the manner in which you did so, the judge said it's not your business as jurors to decide whether these cases should have been brought. How they actually investigate the matters or judge somebody for being called or not called to testify. And that includes Sean "Diddy" Combs, who as you know, as a defendant, it is not his burden to prove his innocence, but the prosecution's burden to prove his guilt.

HUNT: Do we have any idea, any expectations for how long this deliberation may take?

COATES: Well, the jurors, when they were chosen, were told, almost promised, this is all going to be over by the 4th of July. And at the time that was said, void year was months ago at this point. And people thought, well, of course it'd be done by the 4th of July. Well, that's Friday, as you well know.

And jurors are aware of their own calendars and their own private plans. And that can be a bit of a motivator to get people to focus.

[12:35:05]

However, as a defendant, and a presumption of innocence (ph), they can take as long as they need to take to come to their conclusions. But as we see it right now, the jurors are in charge of how long they deliberate every day. It's supposed to be 5:00.

The judge told them they can go longer if they want to. But they have to agree on that unanimously, their first insight into what it's going to take to agree unanimously on what will happen.

HUNT: All right. And, Laura, we do want to note that apparently the jury has just sent a note to the judge, not a decision, a note. We'll bring you the contents of that once we learn a little bit more from our reporters inside the courtroom.

Laura Coates, thank you --

COATES: Yes.

HUNT: -- as always. Really appreciate it.

And coming up here, are they out of the woods yet? That's not just a question that Taylor Swift has asked. It's one that Democrats keep asking. We'll discuss next.

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[12:40:27]

HUNT: All right, welcome back. Shaking up the establishment or just finding a message? That's the question Democrats are debating after New York City Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani shocked the political world with his victory last week in the Democratic mayoral primary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think the Democratic establishment is afraid of you?

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I think that people are catching up to this election. This is an election that went against so much of the analysis that had been told about our party and where we needed to head to. And ultimately, what we're showing is that by putting working people first, by returning to the roots of the Democratic Party, we actually have a path out of this moment where we're facing authoritarianism in Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's a fascinating interview all the way around.

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Democrats have, you know, still have not really grappled with their election losses in November.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: No.

HUNT: Obviously, this has shaken up kind of their view of things. I mean, is this a one-off, I think, is the question a lot of people are asking? And what does it say about how Democrats should try to rebuild?

CALDWELL: Well, it's really funny talking to Democrats about Mamdani because everyone has a different philosophy, a different theory, and how to look at this. But overall, I would say that most Democrats are saying, look, this is not necessarily instructive for Democrats in a congressional, federal, midterm election as far as his policies are concerned.

What is instructive, though, is the fact that he was able to speak to voters authentically, which is the word that you hear these days that Democrats have so far struggled to do. But also the fact that he was focused almost single-handedly on cost and affordability issues. And that is one of the biggest takeaways of Democrats that I talked to that said, that is what won the election.

Maybe we all don't agree on how to address cost and affordability, but he was speaking to what is most concerning to people. So, you know, there is a lot -- people are studying this, and they are also petrified. Democrats are petrified of this as well.

But as one Democratic operative told me, it's not about left versus right anymore, it's about are you speaking to a wide array of people, the working-class people, the people who need the Democratic Party the most.

HUNT: So it's almost class-based --

CALDWELL: Yes.

HUNT: -- in a way. So President Trump weighed in on Sunday about Mamdani. Let's watch what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If he does get in, I'm going to be president, and he's going to have to do the right thing, or they're not getting any money.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you be poised to support New York? I know --

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say that because, you know, I have a lot of people, a lot of friends, and I have everybody, so I don't want to get into that. I can tell you this. Whoever is mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves, or the federal government is coming down very tough on them financially.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, Phil Mattingly, it's worth noting, obviously, the president has already kind of been involved in this because Eric Adams, the current mayor of New York, is still going to be on the ballot as an independent. He obviously was indicted, and then that indictment, you know, evaporated when Donald Trump became president. How do you see the general election here playing out?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Confusingly, with a lot of reason for all of us to pay attention in case the governor's races that we do and should care a lot about aren't giving us enough news on a day-to-day basis. We'll have plenty to go from. And this -- I think it's fascinating that there is a Republican nominee in that race that the president --

HUNT: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- has not endorsed yet, and I think that's kind of funny. Clear -- the Adams element of this makes this all extremely well but --

HUNT: In New York, I'm not sure Republican and MAGA are the same thing.

MATTINGLY: No, I don't -- I think that's actually the case beyond New York. And I think what's fascinating about all this is like, watching the president kind of position there on some level, watching Democrats do their whole Democrat thing, which is like having no idea how to plausibly respond in an authentic manner to this because they're Democrats.

It's kind of a fascinating window into, to your point, coming off of the 2024 election, a party or a political establishment or political system in general that hasn't necessarily gotten their heads wrapped around what that meant, what it's supposed to mean going forward, and what the pathway is.

There is no roadmap other than, I think, Mamdani's kind of greatest victory here was demonstrating that like talking to people, reaching out to people, connecting with people is the most important thing in this moment, and that's not necessarily policy-specific so much as it is personality and understanding those dynamics.

HUNT: Yes, for sure. And l mean, look, to kind of put a finer point, Seung Min Kim, on the challenges that Democrats are facing.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

[12:45:04]

HUNT: If you look at how counties in the United States changed from 2020 to '24, there were 301 American counties that shifted more Democratic. There were 2,630 that shifted more Republican. Democrats are up against a lot.

KIM: Right, right. And you've seen in the last couple of presidential cycles almost this reverse of what traditionally had been the case where higher turnout in presidential years meant better news for Democrats, whereas that's not so much the case anymore. Higher turnout, lower-propensity voters now means better news for Republicans.

But Democrats have a lot to figure out here, especially this election year. I mean, it's been really interesting to see who embraces Mamdani and who doesn't. Obviously, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, both New York, actually constituents of whoever the future New York City mayor is going to be, have kind of kept him at an arm's length, but Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, endorsing him. So just kind of, again, that divide is playing out and it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out.

HUNT: I mean, Lauren, it's almost like there's been pressure on some of those progressives to get on the train, right?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Totally. And I think the other challenge for Democrats, it just reminds me of the moment they were in after Mitt Romney won the presidential election, the Republicans, and everyone was thinking, you know, the Jeb Bush message was the winning message, they needed to expand the tent, and immigration needed to be a bigger part of how they talked about everything.

Immigration --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The autopsy.

FOX: -- did become a bigger --

MATTINGLY: Ah, the autopsy.

FOX: -- part of what they talked about, but the policies Trump exposed were so different. What won Trump the presidency was people believed he was saying exactly what he wanted to say at exactly the moment he wanted to say it.

HUNT: Authenticity, for sure.

All right. Up next here, a "violent violation," quote unquote, and a resignation. The Trump administration stepping up its fights against some of the nation's top universities. We'll dig into the details next.

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[12:51:09] HUNT: All right, let's go now to the latest salvo in the president's months-long war with the country's oldest university. Today, a Trump administration task force sent a letter to Harvard's president claiming the school is in, quote, "violent violation," end quote, of the Civil Rights Act.

The letter said, in part, this, quote, "Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty and staff."

Harvard responded just moments ago, saying it's, quote, "Far from indifferent and strongly disagrees with the report."

My panel is back. And Phil Mattingly, obviously, the president has taken on these universities. This is a significant accusation from the Trump administration.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and I think the language is representative of the tone that they've taken from the very beginning, which was one that they spent years kind of creating the kind of rationale and justification for pursuing and one in which they were very clear they wanted to. And to anybody who had any doubts, very quickly dismissed those doubts within the first coming weeks and days of the administration.

I think what it underscores is a reality of this is an administration, this is a senior -- a group of senior advisers that not only spent the years out of power trying to kind of create the rationales or ensure that they had the policy frameworks in place to actually move on this immediately, but also that other administrations have utilized the fact that the federal government and its funding creates leverage over these universities.

They've never utilized it to this degree. And what this administration has done that no other administration has in the past is they've understood that authority or the authority that that brings with it and leveraged it to the absolute nth degree.

And every time I talk to anybody at the White House about this, they make clear there's no end game here that involves them backing down. They feel like they can continue to ramp it up, not just because they have the authority on the money side, but also because they believe it's a politically winning issue every single time they do it.

HUNT: Well, and Seung Min Kim, that raises questions about, you know, Harvard has taken the administration head on. They have seen consequences from that.

KIM: Exactly. I mean, it's not just the withholding of federal funding, even though that's a large part of this. We've seen efforts by the administration to strip Harvard's ability to admit international students, which is a quarter of the student population and a huge part of that university's fabric.

And just like Phil said, this whole episode involving, you know, Trump versus Harvard shows just how willing the administration is to use every single lever possible to them and the power of government to come down on those who dare fight back. I mean, there is a reason why Harvard so far is really the only institution that has really fought back.

They have the resources to do that. They have sort of the high profile to do that. But most of their Ivy Leagues and most of their schools who've been targeted by the administration have kind of, you know, backed down and agreed to a lot of the conditions that the administration proposed.

HUNT: Well, and speaking of that, I -- we saw late Friday last week the president of the University of Virginia announcing that he would step down under pressure from the administration on the university's funding.

Here was Senator Mark Warner of Virginia over the weekend addressing what happened there. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: The most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education. For him to be threatened, and literally there was indication that they received a letter that if he didn't resign on a day last week by 5:00, all these cuts wouldn't take place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With that explicit.

WARNER: It was that explicit. This is extortional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And Leigh Ann, the president -- the resigned president, James Ryan, said that he was inclined to fight for what he believes in, but then he said, quote, "I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job."

CALDWELL: Yes.

HUNT: "To do so would be quixotic, appear selfish. Hundreds of employees would lose their jobs. Their researchers would lose their funding. Hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld."

[12:55:09]

CALDWELL: Yes, that actually echoes what a source told me last week as this was happening, that he was intent on fighting this, that he was not going to back down and going to take after Harvard. But then ultimately he made the decision that it was just too big. It was beyond him and he couldn't do it.

And I will say that there's a lot of people around here who went to UVA and, you know, it's close by just an hour and a half away. And people are really, really upset. He was very beloved in that community and people thought that he did an amazing job. But this is, again, what -- to Phil said, the right has been plotting a way to get at higher institution for many, many years and Donald Trump is the one who's doing it, yes.

HUNT: And of course, Lauren, I'd love to ask you about Glenn Youngkin and his presidential ambitions and what he's doing, but unfortunately we're out of time.

Thanks to all of you for being here. Thanks to you at home for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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