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Quest Means Business

Vance Tells Conference Tough Regulations Not Coming Back; Trump Threatens To Cut More Funding For Harvard; UNRWA Head Condemns U.S. Backed Aid Effort As Unsafe; Russia Hit Ukraine With Largest Air Attack Of War Over Weekend; Elon Musk Expresses Concerns Over Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill; Nvidia's Quarterly Revenue Rises From A Year Ago; Anthropic CEO Warns A.I. To Spike White-Collar Unemployment. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired May 28, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:10]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: The closing bell is ringing on Wall Street. Not a lot of movement today on the markets. The Dow just a little bit lower as

you can see there. A little over half a percent. Those are the markets and these are the main events.

Vice President J.D. Vance presents the Trump administration as the savior of the crypto industry.

Germany promises to help Ukraine produce its own long range missiles.

And the chip giant, NVIDIA reports its earnings any minute now. Lots of people watching those.

Live from Washington, it is Wednesday, May 28th. I am Jim Sciutto, in again for Richard Quest and this is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

Good evening.

Tonight, the U.S. Vice President tells the crypto community that tough regulation is dead and it is not coming back. J.D. Vance spoke hours ago at

the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas. President Trump's sons, Eric and Donald, Jr. are expected to speak later this hour.

The administration's support for the industry comes amid accusations of self-dealing. Of course, Trump has his own coin. The Vice President says he

still owns a fair amount of Bitcoin himself. President Trump has promoted his meme coin, which we should note has no intrinsic value.

On stage, the Vice President criticized the previous administration's approach.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: After four years of mistreatment and outright hostility led by Democrat regulators,

lawmakers in this country have a choice. Will we lead our nation into a future of financial sovereignty, of innovation, and of prosperity, or will

we let unelected bureaucrats and foreign competitors write the rules for us?

And I am here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Matt Egan is with me now.

And, Matt, as you know, the history of a lack of regulation in the financial industry even before the age of crypto riddled with cautionary

tales. So I wonder, is anybody out there in finance worried about crypto with no regulation?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well. Jim, you're right, they should be. Because we did learn that lesson the hard way during the Great Financial Crisis

when there was a lot of deregulation, and obviously, we know that did not end up well.

But when it comes to crypto, the President really has emerged as the cheerleader-in-chief, but it wasn't always that way. Like others in

business and politics, it has been an evolution, if not a revolution for President Trump, because back in 2019, the President said that he was not a

fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and he said the value was based on thin air.

But then you go to just a few months ago, the President said that he is going to make sure that the United States is the crypto capital of the

world. And the President was elected with a lot of support from the crypto industry. He promised to take a lighter regulatory touch, and he has

largely kept that promise, right, he has done a number of major things that the crypto industry wanted, including establishing a strategic Bitcoin

reserve, starting a digital asset stockpile, tapping crypto friendly regulators and also repealing a Biden era executive order.

Now, we've seen the value of Bitcoin just explode over the last five years, right? It has been a wild ride. There has been a lot of ups and downs, a

lot of volatility. But look at this, up by more than a thousand percent over the last five years, and this is getting the attention obviously of a

lot of major companies, including the owner of Truth Social, right?

Trump Media announcing this week plans to amass a $2.5 billion war chest that's going to be able to buy Bitcoin. Now, this comes as a number of

other companies have taken similar steps to add crypto to their balance sheet. Just today, GameStop says they have made their first purchase of

Bitcoin, amounting to half a billion dollars.

Of course, Trump Media is not GameStop, right? This is a company that is built around the brand of the President of the United States, and just to

remind you, Trump Media launched back in 2021 after the President left the White House, launched Truth Social, went public last year, and then after

the President won the election, he transferred his significant massive stake in this company to a trust.

Of course, that trust, the sole beneficiary is Donald Trump, and the trust is controlled by Donald Trump, Jr.

So all of this is obviously raising some concern among ethics watchdogs. I talked to Richard Painter. He was the ethics czar under George W. Bush, and

he said, this is a major conflict of interest. He said President Trump's executive orders, his regulatory policies and his plans for a national

crypto reserve are inflating asset prices in crypto markets, and at the same time, the President and his family are investing in crypto.

[16:05:15]

Now, I reached out to the White House. They said there is no conflict of interest here because the trust is controlled by the President's children.

But again, Richard Painter, when I asked him about this, he said, look, at the end of the day, the President knows where he and his family are

investing and that it is a conflict of interest -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Matt Egan, thanks so much.

Well, today's conference comes just a week after the President hosted a dinner for exclusively the top holders of his own meme coin. Our next guest

was one of the 220 attendees who together gave millions of dollars in investments to Trump's crypto token. That event took place at the

President's golf club just outside of Washington, D.C. Of course, critics say it gives foreign citizens the chance to buy access to Trump, and it

kind of seems like what that dinner was.

Morten Christensen is a Dutch crypto investor. He founded AirdropAlert.com and he joins me now. Good to have you on. Thanks so much for taking the

time.

MORTEN CHRISTENSEN, FOUNDER, AIRDROPALERT.COM: No worries. Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: So let me ask you a very basic question. You're an investor. Is Trump coin worth anything beyond the perception of Trump's power and

position? Or asked in a different way, would it be worth anything if he wasn't President?

CHRISTENSEN: Well, the Trump name without him being President was pretty big, so I think it would be worth something, but not in the scale as it is

today.

SCIUTTO: Do investors, some of them not saying all of them, but do investors see buying it as one way to curry favor with the President or to

get access to the President?

CHRISTENSEN: Well, that is an interesting question and like before I went into the event, there were a lot of protesters kind of like having that

same voice or concern and I understand that concern completely.

But in reality, in the room itself, I think like half of the people there were people like me who are just like internet geeks and we thought it

would be cool to be in the same room as the United States President. It is not something that any of us had imagined ever to be a reality.

SCIUTTO: Well, let me ask you this. Do you believe the U.S. President should be promoting this from his position as President? Is there any issue

you have with that just as a buyer of his meme coin?

CHRISTENSEN: Well, like I am politically neutral. So for me, it didn't matter which president was here. I do understand the conflict of interest.

If I was a person in his position, I would have not have done it and I think that kind of answers your question.

SCIUTTO: What has investors' reaction been to seeing the First Lady launch her own coin as well? I mean, do you see that -- do other investors see

that as potentially diluting their investment in Trump's meme coin?

CHRISTENSEN: A hundred percent. Like if you are trading meme coins, you are trading basically the attention towards that meme or this person in this

scenario and him launching the Melania or that team launching the Melania coin a couple days after the Trump, it really hurt the confidence of meme

coin traders.

And you can see almost on the hourly that as soon as that coin launched, the value of the Trump token was going down.

SCIUTTO: Same question for the Melania meme coin. Would it be worth anything if she was not the First Lady?

CHRISTENSEN: I think that would be worthless.

SCIUTTO: Worthless. Next question. Both these coins, particularly Trump's coin, when he leaves office, is that a timeline that as an investor, you

would say, well, perhaps times to sell because he is no longer President of the United States?

CHRISTENSEN: Well, that's a good question. Like, so far, there haven't been any plans announced what he is going to do with the token. This dinner

event was the first thing that happened for holders. And the Trump team still holds a significant percentage of the supply. They those tokens are

locked as we are speaking right now, but in the future they will unlock.

Now, the big question for investors and traders like myself is what is going to happen with those locked tokens that they own? Like there are a

couple of scenarios that play out, but I think that is way more important than what happens three-and-a-half years from now, because in crypto,

three-and-a-half years is a lifetime.

SCIUTTO: Morten Christensen, we appreciate you sharing your views. Thanks so much for joining.

CHRISTENSEN: No problem.

SCIUTTO: Well, President Trump is expanding his attacks on Harvard University adding to the fear and uncertainty clouding the school's

commencement, which is tomorrow.

[16:10:10]

Trump is now suggesting that Harvard put a 15 percent cap on the number of foreign students at the university. Currently, international students make

up more than a quarter, 27 percent of the student body.

The President also threatened to cut even more federal funding to the school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They're taking $5 billion, and I'd rather see that money go to trade schools. And by the

way, they're totally antisemitic at Harvard, as you know, and some other colleges, too in all fairness to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Kevin Liptak is at the White House.

I suppose, what's the end game here? Because Trump has already taken a lot away from Harvard. He is trying to take more away. Is he seeking just

complete capitulation because his demands go to the to the degree of basically setting his own standards for Harvard admissions, for what kind

of faculty it hires, what kind of speech it allows on campus, and now how many foreign students it can take in?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it seems like the goal is to kneecap Harvard entirely, both financially through restricting the

federal grants and restricting federal contracts at Harvard for things like medical research, but also to try and kneecap its sort of global stature,

if it is not able to admit sort of the best of the best from around the entire world, I guess, it could potentially be diminished in terms of the

kind of influence it can have beyond the United States, and probably even inside the United States and that does seem to be the end goal here.

The President really going after this institution, which is, you know, I think unquestionably the most elite school in the United States, but also

sort of this beacon for what he says is a liberal bias and try and essentially bring it into check.

When you talk about this attempt to limit the number of foreign students who attend Harvard, you heard the President there saying that he thinks

there should be a 15 percent cap on the number of students who attend there. That's actually the first time we have heard anyone kind of raise

that particular idea as a rationale for not admitting or providing visas to foreign students.

You've heard other rationales, like the idea that many of these foreign students are engaged in protest activity on campus, that the U.S. doesn't

have a good understanding of who they are, that it is not able to vet them. Today, the President, offering an entirely new explanation for why he

thinks that that should be limited because he doesn't think that enough American students are being allowed in.

And so you do hear sort of a variety of different reasons from the administration and from the President for why they're going after Harvard,

and I think part of the reason that they're -- that Harvard thinks that they have a good case to make in court is because the administration has

come up with all of these different rationales and stated them publicly, and we will see a hearing tomorrow up in Massachusetts on this restriction

that the administration put in place last week, limiting the number of foreign students that can attend there, essentially, removing Harvard from

the program that allows foreign students to apply for these visas and that, ultimately, is where almost all of this is going to end up.

Harvard has worked very, very quickly to challenge all of these actions in federal court. The administration will defend themselves there, but you

have seen already judges apply restraining orders, limiting some of the White House's actions. That clearly is where all of this is headed.

SCIUTTO: And of course, the government making standards for a private institution, private educational institution, or attempting to.

Kevin Liptak at the White House. Thanks so much.

Well, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian relief is condemning a new U.S. backed aid distribution effort in Gaza after just a chaotic scene

at that site on Tuesday. We will take a look, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:43]

SCIUTTO: The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian relief is harshly criticizing a new U.S.-backed aid distribution effort in Gaza. The

distribution site was overrun on Tuesday, leading Israeli troops to fire warning shots at people simply desperate and hungry.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini called the situation undignified and unsafe. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it

distributed eight truckloads of food at a second site on Wednesday. It said that distribution was carried out without incident.

H.A. Hellyer is a senior associate fellow in Defense and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute. H.A., good to have you back on.

H.A. HELLYER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE FELLOW IN DEFENSE: Thank you so much. Pleased to be here.

SCIUTTO: So let me begin with a question: Is the distribution plan with this new effort fundamentally unsafe? And if so, why? What is it about it

that led to that scene like we saw yesterday?

HELLYER: So again, thank you for having me on your program. In a word, it is extremely unsafe primarily because what the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

is trying to do is first recreate the wheel in terms of networks of distribution of aid within Gaza. It is incredibly limited in terms of how

it accesses new networks and creates new networks.

So you have, for example, these "distribution centers" only in the south, and there are only a couple of them. You mentioned eight trucks, Gaza needs

anything at least from 500 trucks daily in order to simply meet the present need and it is really very difficult for people to even get to those

centers. They're expected to get there on foot. They are expected to carry kilograms of aid.

And by the way, the aid is food. We are not talking about full aid. We are not talking about medicine. We are not talking about the things that people

need on a day-to-day basis, and they also have to go through quite dangerous areas.

Something that actually you mentioned, Philippe Lazzarini in your opening, six hours ago, he came out publicly and claimed that the Israelis had

carried out a summary execution or that somebody had carried out a summary execution of U.N. aid staff in Gaza demanding an investigation and yet not

getting any response.

It is a very unsafe situation for the people of Gaza and the levels of aid that are needed are really quite tremendous, which is why the entirety of

the humanitarian arena has come out very strongly against this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It is why even the executive director quit because

he said this, this can't be done impartially.

Yes, it is definitely unsafe.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe there is evidence that Israel is deliberately restricting aid to Gaza as a means of pressuring -- pressuring in

particular, Hamas?

[16:20:00]

HELLYER: I personally have absolutely no doubt because they've said it. They've made it very clear that the restrictions on aid, the stopping of

aid, the complete throttling of aid is precisely to impose pressure. It is not an opinion, it is not seeking out evidence. It is simply recognizing

what is staring us plainly in the face.

Of course, statements have been said multiple times over the past, now almost 20 months. We are reaching 600 days. It was in October of 2023 that

you had Israeli officials make it very clear that they would not let anything to get in, and certainly over the past few weeks, we've seen the

policy manifestation of that. It is what has led so many governments now to come out so strongly at least in rhetoric, in rhetorical terms with regards

to this policy.

So there is absolutely no question that the Israelis are certainly restricting and using aid as a means to inflict pressure on the collective

population of Gaza.

This is collective punishment. I think we should call things as they are.

SCIUTTO: Youve heard criticism now, quite public criticism from inside Israel of Israeli leadership questioning, for instance, the conduct of the

war. You had the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, write this week in "Haaretz." I am quoting here: "I believe the government of Israel

is now the enemy from within. It has declared war on the state and its inhabitants."

I wonder to you, what is the significance of hearing such criticism from inside Israel today?

HELLYER: So there's a few things. So Ehud Olmert actually wrote that piece last week, but it was in Hebrew. It was in the Hebrew version of "Haaretz."

Its only just been translated and republished. But there is a very interesting line that's in the piece.

He says that he was defending Israel against the charges of genocide and war crimes consistently over the past 19 to 20 months because he didn't

think that those were applicable. And then he comes to the conclusion, I can't do that anymore. And that's really quite striking because, you know,

Ehud Olmert is not, you know, some sort of, you know, left wing peacenik. Nobody could ever consider him as such.

He is very much from the Israeli right, but came out quite publicly with this critique because I think he sees that its now untenable even from

within his own frame of reference. And you've seen this from a number of different Israeli figures.

Of course, you've seen it from Israeli Human Rights groups, but there are two are two additional points here, one on a public level on a popular

level, the criticism is not as wide. You had a poll also discussed in "Haaretz" in that same newspaper that Ehud Olmert published his piece and

talk about how 82 percent of Israeli Jews would be quite happy to see Palestinians leave Gaza. And the popularity of the "Riviera Plan" which

called for the whole scale moving of Palestinians from Gaza was extremely popular. So I think that's important to keep in mind.

And secondly, when it comes to actual policies, there hasn't been any change and I don't think there will be change as a result of these things

being said. The way in which this changes, unfortunately, is going to have to come from outside and as a result of outside pressure, and so far, we

have not seen that outside pressure.

SCIUTTO: And of course, the politics inside Israel are such that Netanyahu keeps winning elections.

H.A. Hellyer, thanks so much for joining.

HELLYER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, today marks 600 days since the October 7th attack on Israel, sparking that devastating war that continues in Gaza. Fifty-four people

have now been killed in Israeli attacks. This, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. And in Israel, the families of hostages continue to fight

for the return of their loved ones.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond spoke to Israelis who have family members still held captive in Gaza, as well as a former hostage who has been released.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(PEOPLE speaking in foreign language.)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Lishay Miran has been fighting this fight for 600 days.

Six hundred days since Hamas militants broke into her house and shattered her world, 600 days since they took this father from his home.

LISHAY MIRAN-LAVI, WIFE OF HOSTAGE OMRI MIRAN: At the moment that the terrorists get inside our home, Roni was sleeping here. I was here with

Alma and Omri stand here next to the door with two knives in his hand.

Now, visits to the home they once shared are interrupted by the sounds of war.

[16:25:10]

Joltingly shy to her husband's dangerous reality.

DIAMOND (on camera): What goes through your mind when you hear that?

MIRAN-LAVI: I think about them. I think about Omri. What's going on over there when they hear this? Yes. No, I am very scared. I'm really scared and

I thought all the time, what they think right now.

DIAMOND (voice over): Keith Siegel knows exactly what the hostages are going through.

KEITH SIEGEL, RELEASED HAMAS HOSTAGE: It haunts me daily.

DIAMOND (voice over): He survived 484 days in Hamas captivity, enduring abuse.

SIEGEL: I was beaten by terrorists. I experienced physical abuse, psychological and emotional abuse.

DIAMOND (voice over): And Israeli bombing.

SIEGEL: I spent most of my time in captivity above ground and I can tell you that it's scary. I can remember that I was sitting on a chair next to a

window in an apartment on the fifth floor, a house right next to the apartment that we were staying in was bombed. I was blown off the chair

onto the floor.

The windows obviously were all shattered, broken.

DIAMOND (on camera): And so as these bombardments are now intensifying, as the Israeli military is threatening to further expand this military

offensive, what's going through your mind?

SIEGEL: I worry. I worry about the dangers that the hostages are in. Again, they're in a life-threatening situation.

DIAMOND: It seems like what you're saying is that expanding military operations in Gaza increases the threat to the hostages' lives.

SIEGEL: Yes, I believe so.

DIAMOND (voice over): Omri Miran is among the hostages he is worried about. They spent nearly six months together in captivity, bonding over music and

family.

SIEGEL: We talked a lot about Lishay and his daughters, Roni and Alma, who were now aged four and two. It was very difficult for me to think about his

daughters growing up without their dad.

DIAMOND (voice over): After Siegel broke down while filming a hostage video, it was Omri who comforted him.

SIEGEL: He helped me very much. He really calmed me down and he said --

DIAMOND (voice over): Siegel also spent 67 days with Matan Angrest, a now 22-year-old Israeli soldier.

DIAMOND (on camera): It sounds like you carry Omri and Matan with you every day.

SIEGEL: Absolutely, yes, absolutely. I think about them every day. Many times a day, and I worry about them and I miss them.

DIAMOND (voice over): Omri cried out to Siegel and his family last month in this hostage video

(OMRI MIRAN speaking in foreign language.)

DIAMOND (voice over): His wife saw a different man.

MIRAN-LAVI: His eyes was really like it is -- it is not him.

DIAMOND (voice over): But she is convinced their daughters will get their father back.

DIAMOND (on camera): When they ask you - -

MIRAN-LAVI: Yes.

DIAMOND: Will he come home? Do you tell them that he will?

MIRAN-LAVI: Yes, all the time. You know, I don't know if it is going to be tomorrow, and I don't know if it is going to be in one year from now, but I

know in my heart, I know that he is going to come back.

DIAMOND (voice over): Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Nahal Oz, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: So many people there want to see the end of this war.

Well, Russia has been hitting Ukraine in recent days with some of the biggest, deadliest air attacks since its full scale invasion. I am going to

speak about the conditions there with Human Rights advocate, Oleksandra Matviichuk, whose organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:32:15]

SCIUTTO: Hello, I'm Jim Sciutto.

There's more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in just a moment when we'll explain why Elon Musk has become an unlikely critic of President Trump's big, beautiful

bill, as he calls it, and the most anticipated earnings report on Wall Street just came out. We're going to take you through Nvidia's latest

numbers. Before that, however, the headlines this hour.

Donald Trump has pardoned a pair of reality TV stars who were sent to prison for bank fraud and tax evasion. Todd and Julie Chrisley were

convicted of a $30 million bank fraud scheme in 2022. The White House says the sentences given to them were too harsh and called them the victims of

an unjust legal system.

U.K. prosecutors now confirmed they have authorized rape and human trafficking charges against the influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate. Andrew

Tate, a self-described misogynist, is facing charges tied to three alleged victims. The charges against his brother Tristan, connected to one alleged

victim. The two are facing charges in a separate case in Romania. They have previously denied any wrongdoing.

A celebrity stylist was on the stand today in the sex trafficking trial ongoing of Sean "Diddy" Combs. He testified that Combs threatened and

abused Cassie Ventura, who is one of the accusers in this case. Ventura reportedly gave birth today to her third child. She was one of the first

witnesses called. Sean Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and sex trafficking charges.

Donald Trump says he will give another two weeks to Russia to decide whether Putin is serious about peace in Ukraine. The president says he will

change course if he determines that the Kremlin is, quote, "tapping us along." He did not specify what his response would be. CNN is reporting

that the president is at least considering fresh sanctions on Russia.

Germany, meanwhile, is stepping up its military support for Ukraine. Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met

today in Berlin. You see them there, the chancellor says that Germany will help Kyiv produce long range weapons jointly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): We are financing a considerable part of the country's Starlink cover, and our defense

ministers will today sign a memorandum of understanding on the procurement of long range weapon systems from Ukrainian production, so-called long

range fires. There will be no range restrictions. Ukraine will thus be able to defend itself fully, even against military targets outside its own

territory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:35:08]

SCIUTTO: Ukraine launched a drone attack overnight on Moscow, forcing airports in and around the Russian capital to close. Kyiv says the two

drone manufacturing facilities were hit in that attack. Video posted on social media, geolocated as well by CNN, shows smoke rising at one of those

factories.

Ukraine is trying to hamper Russia's withering assaults, many of which have come with just dozens of drones. Over the last couple of weeks, Russia has

launched some of its biggest strikes since the start of its full scale invasion. Ukrainian officials say the strikes this weekend killed 12

people. Zelenskyy said on Sunday America's silence in the midst of these attacks only encourages Vladimir Putin.

Oleksandra Matviichuk is the head of Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. And she joins me now from Kyiv.

Thanks so much for joining.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for the invitation.

SCIUTTO: You're, of course, experiencing these attacks over the last several days and, of course, weeks and months. Deliberate Russian attacks

on civilian targets in Kyiv. I just wonder what the level of fear is there now. And do you take the prospect of peace talks with Russia taking part

seriously?

OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK, CHAIRWOMAN, CENTER FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES: Russia intensify attacks to Kyiv and to other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks,

and killed a lot of people. Just recently we have a funeral of a young mother who was killed by drones in Kyiv region. She covered her 4-year-old

son with her body. Her son was survived and got to hospital. So I don't see that Putin plan to conclude the peace. It's a sign that Putin wants to

continue the war.

SCIUTTO: Yet today, President Trump, who has delayed imposing new sanctions on Russia for weeks and months now, has said he's going to give another two

weeks to decide whether the Russian president is serious.

Do you trust the U.S. president to do what's right for Ukraine?

MATVIICHUK: I think we have to understand the reality, and the reality is that Putin started this large scale war not because he wants to occupy just

more part of Ukrainian land. Putin started this large scale war because he wanted to occupy and destroy the whole Ukraine and move further. His logic

is historical. He dreams about his legacy. He wants to forcibly restore Soviet empire, and that is why we must demonstrate strength to make Putin

understand that it's impossible for him to achieve his goal. In another way he will just postpone it in a time.

SCIUTTO: Who do you and other Ukrainians you work with in your mission there, who do you rely on now to help defend Ukraine? Certainly European

leaders, some of them have been publicly expressing support and delivering more aid. Who do you believe is actually on your side now in this war?

MATVIICHUK: We are very grateful for all countries and people in United States and other countries as well for support and for being with us in

this dramatic time of our history. But we rely on our own shoulders. We rely on people in Ukraine because we are paying the highest price just for

a chance to be free and not to return to the state when we was a Russian colony.

SCIUTTO: Yes. There's a lot of talk now from outside the country that the Ukrainian people are becoming exhausted with the war. They've lost so many

of their sons and daughters in the fighting. Their friends, their colleagues, their mothers, their fathers. Do you sense that? Do you sense

exhaustion with the war there?

MATVIICHUK: The war is horrible. And Russia uses war crimes. The methods of warfare. That's why millions of people in Ukraine are suffering. But we

have no alternative because if we stop fighting, we will cease to exist. Putin openly says there is no Ukrainian nation. There is no Ukrainian

language. There is no Ukrainian culture. They impose terror in occupied territories.

They physically exterminate active local people there, priests, children, writers, lawyers, environmentalists, teachers, journalists, mayors, like

any active people of community. They ban Ukrainian language and culture. They destroyed enrobed Ukrainian cultural heritage.

[16:40:04]

They take Ukrainian children, separated them with their families, and illegally deported them to Russia. So we have no other choice with even if

we are exhausted, if we stop fighting, we will cease to exist.

SCIUTTO: After World War II, of course, you had the Nuremberg trials. You had an effort to prosecute and hold people accountable for war crimes. Do

you believe that those victims of Russian attacks, Russian torture, the children who were taken away from their mothers? Do you think that Russia

will face justice?

MATVIICHUK: This is the most documented war in human history. In our database Tribunal for Putin Initiative, we have documented more than 87,000

episodes of war crimes. And international crimes has no statute of limitations. It means that if today we have no chance to prosecute Putin

and top political leadership and high military command, tomorrow, when situation will change, we will do it because we must break the circle of

impunity which Russia enjoyed for decades.

All this hell which we now face in Ukraine, it's result of this impunity. Russia committed crimes in Chechnya, in Moldova, in Georgia, in Mali, in

Libya, in Syria. So with our justice efforts, we are preventing the next Russian attack to the next nation.

SCIUTTO: Oleksandra Matviichuk, we certainly appreciate the work you're doing there, and we wish you safety in the midst of these ongoing attacks.

MATVIICHUK: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, Elon Musk has concerns, he says, about Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill, as he calls it. We're going to tell you what Musk had to

say about the bill's cost and the effect on his work at the Department of Government Efficiency.

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[16:45:07]

SCIUTTO: President Trump says his big, beautiful bill, as he calls it, still has a ways to go in the U.S. Senate. Elon Musk has joined some

Republicans in pushing back against the bill's total cost. It's estimated the bill would add $3.8 trillion to the U.S. national debt over the next

decade. Musk said that would undermine his work at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: You know, I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just

decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually thought that when this big, beautiful bill came along, I mean, like everything he's done on DOGE gets wiped out in the

first year.

MUSK: I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Hadas Gold is in New York.

And Hadas, I wonder it seems like a public break between Musk and Trump, who were who were such close buddies for at least a few weeks. What's

happening?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it seems like a totally different Elon Musk. Honestly, he seems disappointed and disillusioned with his time

in Washington. And he talked about how this bill undermines DOGE's work. He seemed to agree there with the interviewer that it was going to be

completely wiping out whatever DOGE did.

You know, Elon Musk went all in on President Trump. At one point I remember last year he said that electing President Trump was key to literally saving

humanity. But there are certain lines that when it comes to Trump's policies, he doesn't particularly like, and he will be open about it.

Things like h-1b visas, with tariffs, and now with the deficit spending, and a lot of that has to do, of course, with his own personal businesses

and his own personal business interests.

Of course, with the visas, he wants those high skilled employees from other countries to come work for him. The tariffs directly affect his companies,

especially Tesla's energy company. What's interesting, though, is especially just the last few weeks and the change in attitude from Elon

Musk. Remember, this is the guy who was on a stage brandishing a chainsaw. This is a guy who was in the cabinet meetings.

And just in the last few weeks, I have seen a really big shift in tone from Elon Musk. Now, something that's interesting that Walter Isaacson, you

know, who wrote the big biography on Elon Musk, said just this morning on CNBC. He said Musk was going to get frustrated because he doesn't own the

federal government. And he's particularly frustrated because this bill doesn't do enough to codify the DOGE cuts, essentially saying he went in

there thinking he was really going to be able to get his hands in there and change things from the ground up.

Quickly realized that's not how the federal government works. And now he's disillusioned and we've seen him really step back. He gave several

interviews just this week. Suddenly he's now talking back with all these space reporters and focusing on them. And he's saying, I probably spent too

much time in politics. That's something he said to Ars Technica. And he's vowed that the DOGE work will still continue.

But then in a different interview with "Washington Post," he's focusing more on the computer, saying they're going to try and get the technological

aspects of the federal government working a lot better. That's a lot less of a controversial thing to do than, you know, taking a chainsaw to the

federal workforce. And he is vowing and saying very clearly, he wants to spend 24-7 at his companies. He's back to sleeping on the factory floors,

back to being there the full time.

You know, I spoke to somebody who has spoken with Musk, who is in his orbit, and he said that he is sending a message with this, to the markets

and to his shareholders that he is back because obviously, what we saw happen to Tesla, specifically that share price, those sales that obviously

affected him.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I was going to say a fair amount of signaling from shareholders, right? As they were selling shares.

Hadas Gold, thanks so much.

GOLD: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, the chip giant Nvidia has just reported its earnings. They're good. We're going to bring you the numbers after the break.

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[16:51:31]

SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN. The "Financial Times" is reporting the Trump administration has informed U.S. software companies that supply designs for

trips to stop selling to China. Shares in the potentially affected companies fell heavily on reports of that move. It's a significant new

effort by the president to prevent China from developing leading chips. The Commerce Department said in a statement it is reviewing exports of

strategic significance as it described it to China, and that in some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional

requirements during the review.

In the last hour, the chip giant Nvidia reported earnings. The company beat expectations for the past quarter. It took in $44 billion in revenue. That

is up nearly 70 percent from a year ago. And shares, well, as you can see there, they're up in after-hours trading.

Clare Duffy is with me now.

Clare, as you know, there have been a lot of talk as to when perhaps this might cool off. Right? That demand does not seem to be cooling off at all.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes. Jim, it is another really great earnings report for Nvidia. But going into this report the big question for

Nvidia was about another Trump administration export restriction, restrictions that were announced last month on exports of Nvidia's H20

chips to China. Those are the chips that Nvidia designed specifically to continue to access China despite existing export restrictions. But then the

White House basically said, nope, you're going to need a license for those as well.

Nvidia had warned investors that it was planning to take a $5.5 billion charge because of those new export restrictions. As it turns out, it only

took about a $4.5 billion charge, so that is good news for Nvidia in terms of the impact of the U.S.-China tech and trade war at this point. And

overall, Nvidia's business continues to really grow at a striking clip. As you said, their revenue up almost 70 percent year over year, net income up

about 25 percent year over year.

And so there have been these questions about just how much Nvidia can continue growing this quickly. But at this point, it appears that demand

continues to outstrip supply for these A.I. chips around the world.

SCIUTTO: Clare Duffy, thanks for staying on top of it for us. Appreciate it.

Well, the CEO of the company, Anthropic, is warning that artificial intelligence could wipe out half of all entry level white collar jobs by

the year 2030. Dario Amodei told Axios that companies such as Anthropic have a duty and obligation to be honest about what could be coming. He

predicts industries of all kinds will be hit, impacting everything from technology to finance and law. The company unveiled A.I. technology last

week, which it says can write computer code for nearly seven hours straight, close to the length of a typical human workday.

Anna Stewart is in London.

You know, there's been a lot of talk about this, right? Particularly at the entry level, and not just for code writing. Right? But like finance, law,

et cetera. I mean, that timeline is really quick, right? 2030 is right around the corner.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I think this is a warning for anyone in a white-collar job. And frankly, all jobs you should consider

whether A.I. is just augmenting your job or whether at one stage or another, it might actually automate and replace your job. This is the

warning from the CEO of Anthropic. He used to work at OpenAI before founding this company.

And you know what, Jim, it's been a while since we've had some of these warnings. About two years ago, we had many from the big godfathers of A.I.

[16:55:04]

We had that open letter that was signed by the likes of Elon Musk, calling for a pause on A.I. development in large language models more powerful than

GPT-4. That never happened. And really, policy is very patchy. So here we have a warning very specific about jobs rather than a threat to the sort of

existence of the human race. But it's looking at, for the U.S., for instance, the CEO is saying that perhaps you could see unemployment rise to

10 percent, 20 percent over the next one to five years.

That is a very tight timeframe. And his biggest concern here, I think, is that policymakers are either, he says, not believing the risks or simply

not doing anything about them. And something has to change. There has to be job retraining. There has to maybe be a tax on A.I. companies, including

his own, so that money can be redistributed to manage what he sees as a huge revolution in jobs.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's remarkable to talk about, to suggest taxing his own businesses. You don't often hear that from folks talking about taxing their

own, their own industries. He's not alone in these warnings. I mean, is there evidence that these changes are already happening?

STEWART: Yes. I mean, we've seen a number of job cuts, and very few companies are going to say, hey, we're not just cutting jobs for efficiency

reasons. We're, you know, we're cutting them from artificial intelligence. But we can tell, you know, Microsoft is reportedly laying off 3 percent of

its workforce. This is all in recent months. Walmart hundreds. This article actually cites 1500.

And CrowdStrike, which is a cybersecurity company based in Texas, they recently announced that they're cutting 500 jobs, which is 5 percent of

their workforce. And actually, in a letter, the CEO actually references artificial intelligence. So it's already here. We're already seeing a big

shift in jobs. At the moment A.I. is something we all use to augment our jobs. People generally see it as a great replacement to Google searches.

You can personalize an agent. It's fantastic. It's very useful.

What people probably aren't quite understanding is at some stage, many jobs can be automated by this technology. Whether or not it will be to the

extent that this CEO is warning about remains to be seen.

SCIUTTO: Anna Stewart, thanks so much. You and I are going to be fine, though. We're going to be fine, right? Right?

STEWART: I could be A.I. right now. I think you'd never know.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. I would know. Anyway, thanks so much.

A final check of the markets before we go today. The Dow Jones shed 244 points. Investors reacting in part to the latest Federal Reserve minutes.

Policy workers worry that the job market could weaken substantially, that's a quote, from the ongoing global trade war begun, of course, by President

Trump.

Wall Street was lower across the board. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell just over a half percent. S&P is now flat on the year. Looking at the Dow

30. UnitedHealth Group on top, up just about a percent. Nearly everything else in the red. Retail shares dipped. Nike down 1.7 percent. It's a big

red board.

That's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. I'm Jim Sciutto. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" is next.

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