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Supreme Court Rules on Reverse Discrimination Case; Interview With Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; Trump and Xi Jinping Talk. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:01:08]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: trade talk. As tensions escalate, President Trump and China's Xi Jinping hold their long-awaited phone call. We have the latest developments from here in Washington and Beijing.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And we want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: And we begin this hour with breaking news.

After weeks of stalled trade negotiations and mounting tensions, President Trump finally speaks with China's Xi Jinping, officials saying the long-awaited phone call was held earlier this morning.

BROWN: Joining us now is CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, great to have you here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

What are you learning about this highly anticipated phone call?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, so Donald Trump just posted his own readout, which is now what we have grown accustomed to. It used to be that the White House would put out their readout with the highlights.

Donald Trump now is saying exactly what happened in the call. So here's what he said. And this is actually a much more formal readout than we saw yesterday when he talked to Vladimir Putin.

He said that they were discussing "some of the intricacies of our recently made and agreed to trade deal. The call lasted approximately 1.5 hours and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries. There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of rare earth products. And our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined." Now, he gives who the team is going to be, which is important, because obviously we're going to be following what exactly they're doing. This is going to be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, and the United States trade representative, Jamieson Greer.

He says that Xi invited them to China, he and Melania, and that he reciprocated the invitation and that they're going to move forward here. He also says they didn't talk about any other big issues. Now, just a quick thing on the rare minerals.

This was something that we knew Donald Trump was going to bring up, something that he has said that he was annoyed about with China, that he doesn't believe that they were exporting these rare minerals as fast or at the same pace that they had agreed to in the trade deal. So he was basically saying that they were not living up to their end of the bargain.

But the other part of this, of course, that is so important is the fact that this is really the first conversation these two leaders have had since January. It's the first time that they have had a conversation on the phone. And we know that that was intentional, that the Chinese officials did not want to set up this conversation with Donald Trump, in part because they were seeing what he was doing with these leaders on the national stage.

He was embarrassing them. He was getting into fights with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. He was ambushing the South African president. And that is not the kind of thing that they wanted to put their leader, the position they want to put their leader in.

So this is important for a number of reasons here geopolitically.

BLITZER: Kristen, I want you to stay with us.

I want to go also to CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Steven Jiang, who's joining us live right now.

What is China saying about this phone call?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: You know, Wolf, the Chinese readout is pretty broad stroke, but not surprising, with them saying that Xi Jinping, their leader, Xi Jinping, really emphasized the need to put this relationship on the right track and emphasizing mutual respect and win-win cooperation, all the usual buzzwords you hear from them.

But he also Xi Jinping made a point of saying that Chinese have been sincere, but principled, saying they have been really implementing their end of the agreement reached in Geneva.

But, instead, he urged the U.S. to drop negative moves targeting China, presumably referring to the U.S. announcements to halt exports of key technologies and components that Chinese -- the Chinese need for their aviation and semiconductor industries, for example, but also the Marco Rubio announcement promising to, in his words, aggressively revoking student visas for Chinese nationals, which could have huge repercussions for the nearly 300,000 Chinese students currently in the U.S.

[11:05:10]

Now, of course, from the U.S. perspective, as you just heard, all of that was in response to the Chinese lack of progress on the rare earth export front, because, if anything, the Chinese had been tightening their grip on these export licenses, because, remember, Wolf, for years, they have been signaling they're willing to weaponize their stranglehold on the supply chain for strategic reasons.

And that seems to be exactly what's been happening here. But at least now this phone call has taken place. The consensus among many analysts seems to be this is going to put a floor on this potential downward spiral to stabilize this relationship somewhat for talks on specific issues to resume, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Pamela.

BROWN: Steven Jiang, thank you so much.

Kristen, I want to turn to you on Trump's travel ban that he just announced. It's interesting because the White House is saying this is in response in large part to the attack in Boulder. The suspected attacker there is from Egypt, but Egypt is not on the list of these countries.

HOLMES: No, it's not on the list, which is kind of an interesting leap here that Donald Trump is making, saying it was because of this specifically, that he had been mulling this for a while, but this put him over the edge, but, again, it's not even on the list.

So we have two different groups here of countries. There is a group of countries that is going to have full restrictions on entry, and then you have a partial restriction on entry, which has to do with visas and different kind of diplomatic systems.

So when you go to the countries, the 12 countries that are on the fully restricted list are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

And then on the partially restriction section, it is Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Now, they also say that this exclude exemptions for lawful permanent residents, that excludes exemptions for existing visa holders, and certain visa categories for specific individuals.

Obviously, we saw this play out last time. It's going to be very complicated. It's probably going to cause a lot of confusion and frustration and issues as it is being implemented, as we saw, and there's likely to be legal repercussions or at least legal recourse taken.

BROWN: Yes, we saw that in the first term. HOLMES: Right.

BROWN: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much.

BLITZER: I want to bring in Georgetown University Law Professor and CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck, along with CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

Steve, there was a lot of backlash over Trump's travel ban during his first term, as you know. You told "The New York Times" that the White House -- quote -- "seems to have learned some lessons from the three different rounds of litigation we went through during the first term administration -- first Trump administration."

Do you think this new ban can withstand the legal scrutiny it's about to have?

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, so, Wolf, I think at least with respect to the challenges we saw during the first Trump administration, where it really was not nearly as well calibrated -- Kristen mentioned the countries.

In the first administration, it was all majority Muslim countries. We're not seeing that this time around. I think the administration's on stronger footing, at least facially, with regard to the initial promulgation of this policy.

What's really going to matter, Wolf, is what happens on the ground. Are there going to be challenges, for example, to the factual basis on which some of these countries were included? The president's proclamation talks about visa overstay data. They don't really have that data. It's not clear where that data's coming from.

So I think we're going to see litigation. Some of the challenges may succeed, but it's going to be a different type of lawsuit, a different legal space than what we saw in 2017 and 2018.

BROWN: And the White House, Elie, is saying this is for national security purposes and that Trump made the final call on this ban after the antisemitic attack in Boulder.

But the suspect there is from Egypt. As I noted with Kristen, Egypt isn't part of the ban. Could that fact make it easier to challenge in court?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there's definitely a discrepancy there, Pam. And I think that will matter politically. Legally, I don't think that discrepancy will matter.

If we look back at that 2018 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, first of all, the conservatives in that 5-4 majority said the president gets very broad deference under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. The other thing is, there was a similar question in that case, because Donald Trump then had made certain comments outside of the court record against Muslim countries. And so the challengers argued, well, look, that shows that he has a

bad motive here, but the Supreme Court essentially ruled that statements made by the president outside of the court record, public statements or tweets or that kind of thing, don't really matter. What really matters, as Steve said, is what happens on the ground, what the specific content is of the order, and also what findings DHS made, and we should see these soon, that underlie this action.

So there's clearly a discrepancy here. It's hard to square him saying this has to do with security from Egypt when Egypt's not on the list. But, ultimately, I don't think that's going to impact the legal analysis here.

[11:10:10]

BROWN: And -- oh, go ahead.

BLITZER: Yes, I want to go back to Steve.

Steve, you say that this ban is set to take effect next week, as you know. How soon after that do you expect the legal challenges will start coming in?

VLADECK: Oh, I think right away, Wolf.

I mean, I think we have seen across this administration litigants, especially in the immigration context, have not been shy about trying to challenge the president's policies as soon as they're in force, sometimes before they're in force.

But I think Elie's point is really important, which is, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote in 2018, let President Trump impose what was then the third iteration of that first generation travel ban, even though that one looked much more like it was targeted against Muslim-majority countries.

This time around, I think the litigation is going to be much more about, why these countries and not other countries? What is the factual basis? And as we're seeing in so many of these other lawsuits challenging Trump policies, are the courts just going to defer when the government says, this is why we put Laos on the list, or this is why we put Cuba on the list, or is there going to be some skepticism, some scrutiny?

Wolf, we're going to find that out pretty quickly.

BLITZER: I assume we will.

BROWN: Yes. I want to go back to Elie to bring you in, Elie, because we were just talking earlier this week about Stephen Miller's theory that the immigration law in the books, the Immigration Nationality Act -- Elie, are you still there?

I just want to make sure you're still there. I'm not sure.

HONIG: Yes. I'm here for you, Pam. BROWN: That basically under his theory, that the executive -- the

judicial branch under Article III should not have any say on what this White House does under Article II of the Constitution when it comes to immigration.

And so you have to wonder if that argument is going to make its way in as these legal challenges roll in.

HONIG: Yes, I think we're going to see Steve Miller's theory disproven yet again because courts can do and have reviewed the president's actions on immigration. Sometimes, they uphold those actions, as we saw in 2018.

And another important thing to keep in mind, Pam and Wolf, as we look forward to what I think is likely to end up in the Supreme Court again, back in 2018, the court was very different than it is now. At the time in 2018, you more or less had four conservatives, four liberals, and then Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote. In that case, he sided with the conservatives.

Now you have a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court, and I think it's all the more likely that Donald Trump will succeed again. But, again, I think this will disprove Steve Miller's favorite talking point that the courts have no role whatsoever in immigration. They do have a role, and I think we will see them continue to exercise that role.

BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: I totally agree.

Elie Honig, thank you very much. Steve Vladeck, thanks to you as well.

HONIG: You bet.

BROWN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Pamela.

VLADECK: Thank you.

BROWN: And still ahead: a consequential visit to the White House for Germany's new chancellor this morning -- what he hopes to get from the Trump administration at a time when the U.S. appears to be pulling away from Europe.

BLITZER: Plus this: We're talking with former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as the city prepares to pick its next mayor from nine candidates.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[11:17:46]

BLITZER: The race for New York's next mayor is heating up big time. Democratic candidates took the stage last night for their first

primary debate. That includes the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the midst of his attempted political comeback. Cuomo pitching himself as the city's best bet against President Donald Trump's administration. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I am the last person this stage that Mr. Trump wants to see as mayor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Cuomo's opponents, meanwhile, taking the opportunity to pile on the attacks against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Andrew Cuomo did lie to Congress.

BRAD LANDER (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Sweep away the corruption of Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo.

MICHAEL BLAKE (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: The people who don't feel safe are young women, mothers and grandmothers around Andrew Cuomo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now for analysis is former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Mayor de Blasio, thanks so much for joining us.

Let me get your reaction to last night's debate. As we just saw, it was very lively. Former Governor Cuomo's opponents attacked him throughout the night, seizing on the controversies that drove him out of office as he appears to be the favorite in this primary.

Is it Cuomo's race to lose right now?

BILL DE BLASIO (D), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY, NY: Wolf, I don't think it's quite that reality. I think this is a very open dynamic. Most New Yorkers have not paid attention yet. I think this debate is one of the things that's going to start to focus them on the election just a few weeks from now.

Look, last night, I think the emperor had no clothes. Cuomo was attacked from all sides. That air of inevitability or the kind of fear with which he created the -- in his governing style in the past, that wasn't there last night. People felt they could go right at him.

That said, I think his answers about Trump were very strong. I think he acquitted himself well on many levels. But what was most striking to me was his main opponent, Zohran Mamdani, seemed energetic, youthful, energetic, focused. Cuomo at times seemed a little lower energy, a little drifty.

And that's going to be an interesting dynamic in an election that very much might be about the desire for change.

BLITZER: I want to play for you and for our viewers, Mayor, some of what former Governor Cuomo had to say on why he should be the next mayor of New York.

[11:20:10]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: I know how to deal with Donald Trump because I have dealt with him before many times. We have had many encounters. We fought on a daily basis through COVID, and I won many of those battles. I fought him on ICE.

This is not the first time he's brought ICE to New York. He's done that before, and we fought him and we won. So he can be beaten, but he has to know that he's up against an adversary who can actually beat him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Mayor de Blasio, you were the mayor of New York City during those fights that we just heard about. Do you agree with him?

DE BLASIO: It's a mixed bag, is the truth, Wolf.

On the one hand, I think Cuomo's answers were strong on that, but I would say, at the same time, it's certainly typical of him to switch positions. And I'm not going to be surprised if he at some times fights Trump, at other times aligns with him. They have a lot of history. They have a lot of similarities, in fact, in style and approach. So I don't think that part is clear enough.

The election, though, I think actually is going to be a lot less about Trump and much more about what's going on in New York City, which is the affordability crisis. And, there, it's going to be an interesting fight. Let -- look, these other candidates certainly could end up being more prominent, but, as of today, Cuomo and Mamdani.

Cuomo has to say more on affordability than he said. Mamdani, obviously, talking about rent freeze and other things that go right out of affordability, has advantaged himself. So I think that's where this election will be decided. New Yorkers are trying to figure out who is going to help them afford the cost of this incredibly expensive place.

BLITZER: As you know, the current mayor of New York, Eric Adams, is running as an independent, although he says repeatedly he still identifies as a Democrat. What do you think?

DE BLASIO: Look, I think he did the smart move. He was not going to fare well in the Democratic primary. The interesting thing about Eric Adams is, he made immense mistakes

with the people he put around him. And, obviously, the public is very, very concerned about that team he assembled. And some of them got in real trouble. At the same time crime is down, jobs are up. He has some real achievements to talk about.

So I think what's interesting here, Wolf, is the general election should not be taken for granted here. And, by the way, New York had 20 years before I was mayor of Republican or independent mayors. So I think what we have to recognize here is this is going to be a very contested general election regardless of who the Democratic nominee is.

BLITZER: Earlier this year, you appeared right here on CNN with Mayor Adams for a joint interview, where you praised efforts he was undertaking and said you had concerns about Governor Cuomo. You said it was too early to endorse them, either one of them, for that matter.

But now that the primary is just a few weeks away, are you ready to throw your support behind a candidate?

DE BLASIO: No, honestly not. And as I said to you, I think we have two phases here. We have a primary that's still very much contested. And I think you're going to see this primary tighten up a lot. Several of the candidates last night, Michael Blake, Adrienne Adams, advantaged themselves.

We're going to see how this shakes out. But I'm not ready to endorse in the primary, but I will tell you, again, we're going to have a very contested general. So I'm going to decide if and when it makes sense to weigh in. But this is going to be a very lively ride. I guarantee you that.

BLITZER: President Trump at the same time issued a travel ban fully restricting entry to the United States for nationals from 12 countries. I want to get your reaction to something New York Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman told our Kaitlan Collins about this move.

Listen and watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN GOLDMAN (D-NY): It's pretty consistent with what his -- quote, unquote -- "immigration policy" is, which is just essentially to keep anyone who's not white out of the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Is Congressman Goldman right?

DE BLASIO: Oh, he's 100 percent right.

Look, when we saw Donald Trump give refugee status to white South Africans and create a whole fiction around the oppression of those individuals, where at the same time he's banning people of color from coming here, Donald Trump doesn't even pretend, right?

I mean, he is -- he believes in white nationalism. And the country is ultimately going to reject it. I'm absolutely convinced of that, because this country has worked because it's a country for everyone. That's how we got great. And I believe Americans will increasingly come to that realization.

This kind of action, it just digs in deeper the reality that Trump has a narrow base and has a narrow ideology. And we saw it last time. At first, he seems strong. Then it fades rapidly. He has the lowest approval rating of any president at this period since polling began. This is another one of those nails in the coffin for Donald Trump politically.

[11:25:10]

BLITZER: Former Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio, thanks so much for joining us.

DE BLASIO: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf, it has been a busy morning at the Supreme Court, which just handed down six opinions today.

The most far-reaching, the justices unanimously sided with an Ohio woman who filed a discrimination lawsuit claiming her gay boss passed her over for promotion that was offered to another woman who is gay.

Let's go straight to CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid.

Walk us through this case. This was one of the ones we were really looking for, Paula.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right.

This is one of the big cases that we have been watching this term. And this was a unanimous decision. As you noted, the focus here was a woman in Ohio who said that she was passed over for promotion by her gay boss in favor of another gay employee. And she claims so-called reverse discrimination.

But the focus here for the justices was a standard in some states where you -- if you are member of a majority group, which she is, as a white heterosexual woman, you sometimes have to meet a higher bar to show that you should be able to proceed with a discrimination lawsuit than you would if you were a member of a minority group.

And that's really what the court was looking at here. And in a unanimous opinion, they sided with this woman in Ohio. Writing for the court, Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that this test, this higher bar, it has no basis in the text of Title 7. She said: "We conclude that Title 7 does not impose a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs." So this is a win for this woman in Ohio. But, as you know, DEI initiatives across the country have been a target of the Trump administration. So this has been a hot issue and one of the reasons that we have been watching this case so closely.

Now, this is not as much of a blockbuster term as what we had last year. We had about a dozen major cases that could impact the lives of millions of Americans. But this is one of a handful of cases that we have been watching very closely. And, notable, it is unanimous and will make it easier for members of majority groups to bring these so- called reverse discrimination actions.

BROWN: All right, Paula Reid, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Up next, Pamela: Germany's new leader, the chancellor, he's here in Washington right now for crucial conversations with President Trump -- how the chancellor could push for lower tariffs and stronger U.S. support for Ukraine.

Stay with us. We will be right back.

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