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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Officially Signs Agreement with Iran; Some Republicans Blast U.S. Agreement with Iran; Trump: Iran Agreement has Everything We Set Out to Accomplish; Trump Officially Signs Agreement With Iran; Bernie Sanders to Introduce Bill Creating A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund; Three Pennsylvania Midterm Races Loom Large, Could Decide Which Party Controls House; Reflecting Pool Water Still Green From Residual Algae. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 17, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Oh what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The architect said, seeing these letters is like looking into his mind as he is writing the speech.
This is one part of his legacy. But finally, this Obama presidential center is opening nearly ten years after he left office.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Chicago.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks to Jeff. Thanks to you for being with us. AC 360 starts now.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening from the Newsroom.
Topping our CNN global war coverage, the text of the preliminary agreement with Iran is out. And late today, the President signed a hard copy of it.
Now, the agreement hits pause on hostilities for 60 days of further talks. It reopens the Strait of Hormuz, reaffirms Iran's commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, commits the U.S. to lifting sanctions on Iran, and outlines a $300 billion plan for Iran's reconstruction.
Officials close to the talks, though, say the first priority was, in the words of one of them, to, quote "get this thing over with." And some of the details of this Memorandum of Understanding suggests a lot of concessions were made to achieve that goal.
For starters, Paragraph 8 of the agreement begins with a commitment that "The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons." The catch is, this is what Iran already had agreed in the 2015 and before that in 1970. Another apparent U.S. concession is on Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The agreement states that the two sides commit to down-blending or diluting it "on site" under the supervision of the IAEA. In other words, the nuclear material, or what the President keeps calling the nuclear dust can stay in Iran. This is something the President has said on many occasions must be taken out of the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The nuclear dust, we are going to want that and I think we are going to get that.
We are going to get the dust back.
Nuclear dust.
The nuclear dust.
We are getting the nuclear dust. That was a term I made up because it sort of you know, it is a simpler term for people to understand. It is nuclear dust. It is sort of dusty. But I said, we'd get the nuclear dust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He can call it whatever he wants, but they are not getting it. When asked about it today, the President said that's no longer a problem because the material was buried by American airstrikes, which led to this very long soliloquy about granite and marble.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They were building where they were enriching material, as they say, I call it nuclear dust. They were enriching material under granite mountains. Granite being for those not in the construction business, granite being a very strong, the strongest stone. It is not as pretty as marble, but it is much more -- it is much stronger. It is a lot stronger, like the new granite. I put on the stairs of The White House going to the Oval Office, the black granite. It is rated one million years plus.
No marble is rated that, marble is rated a hundred years if it is outside. So these are granite.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It is about granite. Neither, apparently, is international control of the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement calls for the Strait to begin reopening immediately and be toll free for the 60 days of further U.S.-Iran negotiations. The catch there is that it already was open and toll free before the war, and free to any and all vessels under international law.
Language in the Memorandum now suggests that after 60 days, Iran and Oman would be able to set the rules. Then there is Paragraph 4, quoting now, "The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal." The question is, does that mean the U.S. warships in the gulf? The Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, does it mean troops and aircraft in Qatar and other Gulf states? The Memorandum does not specify.
There is also Iran's frozen assets. Quoting now, "The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU." The key words are the "upon the implementation of this MOU," suggesting Iran could start accessing billions in frozen assets immediately before any final agreement is reached.
The agreement also commits the U.S. to undertake development of a $300 billion fund for rebuilding Iran. Recall the President back in April said that, "no money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form to end the war." And as you know, he has repeatedly criticized former President Obama, including today, for unfreezing far less.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The JCPOA done by Obama. He handed then $1.7 billion in cash. And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama and they said, he is a stupid son of a bitch.
The Barack Hussein Obama catastrophe, JCPOA, one of the worst deals.
I terminated, the Iran Nuclear Deal.
[20:05:10]
Barack Hussein Obama sold out Israel for Iran.
Barack Hussein Obama's Iran Nuclear Deal, a disaster.
The Iran Nuclear Deal given to us, one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they sent Boeing 757s over there loaded with cash.
The foolish Iran Nuclear Deal.
The very defective JCPOA.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So he has been talking about that for a long time. That was then. These days, even as he criticizes the former president's 2015 deal and the concessions contained in it, the President is downplaying his own.
Today, he even backed away from an earlier war aim of entirely eliminating Iran's ballistic missile fleet. Today, he said he did not mind if Iran has ballistic missiles and when asked about it, replied, " I am saying that if other countries have them, it is a little unfair for them not to have some."
Joining me now is Brett McGurk, who has held national security positions under the last four presidents, including during President Trump's first term, and Alan Eyre, former senior U.S. diplomat and a member of the team who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran President Trump withdrew the U.S. from that agreement back in 2018.
Brett, you wrote an extensive piece for cnn.com breaking down the different points of the agreement. You say that the U.S. appears to have given away much of its leverage in exchange for opening the Strait of Hormuz.
What leverage, if any, does the U.S. actually have going forward?
BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I am just -- I am struck, Anderson, by the oil sanctions or the key kind of what the U.S. has applied pressure on Iran, even in the nuclear talks, to get the JCPOA, the Obama deal, which Alan very well remembers.
We got their oil exports way down to a couple of hundred thousand barrels a day through oil sanctions that provided the pressure that got to the JCPOA.
This deal up front. I mean, let's just face it. It waives all those sanctions. It waives oil sanctions, petrochemical trade, banking sanctions, which means Iran, for the first time, really since President Trump left the JCPOA, will be trading all those products on the open market. Experts have said $60 billion to $80 billion a year, perhaps. That is a massive economic windfall. And they're going to be collecting that before they've made any real commitments at all on the nuclear side.
So what leverage do we have here? It is a big open question. I will say Iran's nuclear program, because of the military operation a year ago, which I think was far more effective than what we just went through, did basically knock out the program. So they're not enriching uranium and that status quo will remain.
But look, this was a deal for -- we basically paid a lot for a short term commitment from Iran to stop targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. I think the precedent for this, Anderson, not just the Middle East, but globally. It is kind of a choke point sovereignty.
You think about how China is watching this, the Strait of Taiwan. This is going to really unfold and play out, I think, for some time. But to these talks and the leverage to your question, we gave up most of it.
COOPER: I mean, Alan, he is saying, we were -- you know, we are paying a lot to get them to stop targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. They were not doing that previous to the war, which this administration launched.
So it is solving a problem that was created only after the war began.
ALAN EYRE, FORMER SENIOR U.S. DIPLOMAT: Well, it is worse than that, Anderson. I fully agree with Brett. It is not solving a problem that didn't exist before the war began, because we are not and it is unlikely we will get the Strait of Hormuz back to the way it was before.
You know, as Brett pointed out, it is going to be under --
COOPER: They can close it down any time they want.
EYRE: Yes, so again, you know, we've expanded blood and treasure to be in a much strategically worse situation to, in effect, just cripple ourselves strategically for no reason. It is an own goal to use a World Cup analogy.
COOPER: And Alan, when you hear the President continue to attack the agreement, which you worked on and got with Iran, what really is the most galling part of that? I mean, what did the JCPOA do that this does not.
EYRE: Well, the JCPOA existed and it put Iran's nuclear program in a box. He has not yet gotten a nuclear deal. He wrote a book, "The Art of the Deal" and as an American citizen, I am rooting for him to get a deal better than Obama's.
I think that's highly unlikely, and I think it is more likely we won't get any sort of nuclear deal. So the JCPOA diagnosed a problem. It met it. The perfect is the enemy of the good, but it checked the box and solved the problem, at least for the foreseeable future.
So the genesis of this problem is not when we attacked on February 28th, it is 2018 when President Trump tore up the JCPOA even though Iran was living up to the constraints that the JCPOA put on it.
COOPER: Brett, does it make sense to you when you hear the President of the United States now praising Iranian leadership and saying, you know, that -- how great they were to deal with.
[20:10:10]
I mean, I don't want to misquote him, but he said some very laudatory things about them.
MCGURK: No, Anderson, the word "hubris," I think we had hubris going into this in terms of a military campaign with almost infinite objective about regime change and all sorts of things, which we could not meet, and now, we have hubris coming out of it, because what you're hearing from senior officials about, we may be transforming our relationship with Iran and maybe turning the page after 47 years of hostility.
I guarantee that is not how Iran sees it. I think there is no sign here that that system and the Revolutionary Guard and that core ideological structure has changed from this conflict. If anything, it has reconsolidated.
And so this is not over, Anderson. I think we will continue to be talking about this for some time. This challenge of Iran will continue through Trump's presidency and beyond, and even in these 60 days as we go through them, I suspect there will be all sorts of tension points and perhaps flare ups, because there is still a massive gap between the two capitals.
But yes, it is surprising and it is kind of the flip side of the hubris we had going into this, that we could use military might to collapse the regime. Now, we are telling ourselves or apparently telling ourselves, perhaps we are dealing with, you know, a new cast of characters in Iran who might want to turn the page in their conflict with the United States.
I hope that it is where we are, but I am seeing no sign of it from the Iranians, including in their statements in their state media and senior officials, just tonight, just in the past hour.
COOPER: Alan, if there is any leverage the U.S. has, it is essentially well, the U.S. can begin bombing again. But, you know, there was a pretty massive onslaught of bombing, and it didn't bring the regime to its knees. There is no evidence that it would again
Do you think there will be any kind of actual nuclear agreement hammered out in 60 days or 120 days?
EYRE: Well, first, Anderson, I respectfully disagree with you. We lost our kinetic leverage. Iran took our shot. We have shown that the big stick we've been waving at Iran for the past 49 years wasn't big enough. So move the whole military threat angle to the side because it didn't work.
The only leverage we have is the one that's rife in this document, which is giving them money, whether it is unblocking assets, letting them export their oil, or, you know, this $300 billion development fund, which will never happen.
But in terms of your question, no, we are not going to get a nuclear deal. That's very unlikely. The Iranian negotiators are experienced negotiators. We have a President who thinks that Qatar and Iran share a land border, and a Vice President who thought GCC stood for the what was it -- I mean, I forget what it is, but he didn't know what it stood for Gulf Cooperation Council. Oh, the Gulf Coast Council or something like that.
So we don't have the requisite expertise. The Iranians have the strategic leverage. So, no, I don't see any effective nuclear deal coming out of this, whether its 60 days, 120 days, or multiply that by whatever.
COOPER: Alan Eyre, Brett McGurk, thanks for being on, I appreciate it.
Coming up next, how members of the President's own party are receiving the deal and challenges he may face in selling it to the public. Also, Senator Bernie Sanders for his take on it, he joins us ahead.
Later, more workers at the reflecting pool, armed with skimmers, trying to scoop algae that has not gone away despite the President's $14 million no bid renovation project and a lot of blue paint. Late update on that as our senior global coverage continues. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:48]
COOPER: More on the breaking news: The President has officially signed the agreement with Iran, while in France, the G7 at Versailles, no less, some Republicans are lambasting the deal, including conservative commentator Erick Erickson, who posted on social media, "This is an American surrender." Also on X, outgoing Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who wrote "Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed." Cassidy added, "This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades."
Though Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has praised for the U.S. Military action in Iran, he is also taking issue with the money Iran could get under the deal to end hostilities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): They have been bombed back to the Stone Age. Now, I don't want to see theocratic Islamists who want to kill us made stronger. So, if this deal is giving them $300 billion, that's a mistake. I hope that is not the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: As we mentioned at the top, the deal commits the U.S. and regional partners to setting up a $300 billion or more reconstruction fund for Iran.
Joining us now, CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp; former Trump White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci, author of the upcoming book "All The Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump," and Republican strategist, Brad Todd.
Anthony, what do you think of the deal?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, it is so hard to believe that I actually thought it can't be true. When you look through the numbers, you're like, okay, there is no way that this is the deal. And I think he is pinned now because the reaction is so bad that he will now start lying about it and saying, okay, that wasn't really the deal. Go look at this shiny object over here, and let's pretend that that's not the deal.
So the market thus far has not reacted poorly, but I expect it to as this unfolds.
COOPER: He also seems to be now kind of pointing the finger at J.D. Vance a little bit, kind of almost kind of setting him up as the fall guy.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think in the beginning of the war, you'll probably remember it seemed like he was setting up Pete Hegseth, right? Remember he pointed at Pete in a meeting and he was like, this was Pete's idea. It seems like he has shifted to J.D. Vance now owns, I guess, the conclusion of this war where Pete maybe owns the beginning.
But listen, for a lot of Republicans, myself, a former Republican included, we have a long memory of the JCPOA, and I remember the condemnation of that for good reason. It wasn't a great deal.
[20:20:10]
Next to that deal, this looks like the Magna Carta of Deals like this looks like a treaty. I mean, or that looks like the Magna Carta of deals next to Trump's. It is just so bad. It doesn't leave us with much of anything we didn't have before.
In fact, our economy is weaker. Our allies and our enemies don't trust our might anymore. We've watched Trump capitulate on a bunch of things. I just don't see how he can save face with this if the details stay as they are.
SCARAMUCCI: Anderson, I want you to imagine a scenario where the Obama administration, the Biden administration, created $1 trillion of economic damage, $1 billion a day to fight a war. When the war was over, the Strait is closed, and we are going to give $300 billion of reparations, and nothing resolved on the nuclear situation.
COOPER: And if Biden had been praising like the mullahs and the leaders there --
SCARAMUCCI: It is okay to have missiles. Everybody has got a few missiles here and there. There would be outrage like you can't believe.
So I guess the big question is, how does Trump still get away with it? What is it about his Teflon that allows him to get away with something like this? And I think as we get closer to the midterms and over the midterms, despite a stronghold on the primary voters of the Republican Party, I think that traditional Republicans are going to really break from them.
COOPER: Brad, I want to play what President Trump said actually about J.D. Vance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There is some element to this where you send the Vice President, if it works out, great. You look like a genius for sending him. And if it doesn't work out, it is the Vice President's fault.
TRUMP: I like that idea. Sure. This way, if it works out, I am going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I am blaming J.D. You better be careful, J.D. He is going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here. Yes, I like that idea. I think it is a good idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Brad, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy also said this agreement is going to leave Iran stronger, allies weaker. There is precedent for Iran to use control of the Strait of Hormuz as leverage. I mean, do you think that's a fair assessment?
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the President should have said the Vice President didn't read "The Art of the MOU." I don't know about the art of the deal here yet.
And this is just a Memorandum of Understanding. I certainly hope the final deal will be better. And I think --
COOPER: You think there is going to be a final deal?
TODD: Well, I think there is a right to be skeptical. But, you know, there are some carrots in there for the Iranians at the end of a final deal, which is the U.S. Forces don't have to leave the region until 30 days after a final deal. Hopefully, that this final deal will be worth leaving over. This certainly is not.
You know, I am in touch with a lot of Republican elected officials and candidates, and I've not heard one of them today say that what they've heard so far on this MOU is a good idea. I think that's an indication that it is a political problem.
And, you know, the President is not on the ballot anymore, but the Vice President might want to run one day. And I think it could be a very big political problem for him in the future.
Do you -- I mean, do either of you see there actually being a nuclear agreement? I mean, you know, Alan Eyre was like 60 days, 120 days -- it doesn't matter the length of time, there is not really leverage over the Iranian regime.
CUPP: The -- just by way of example, the JCPOA took two years to ratify that deal, to come to the specifics, because the devil is always in the details with these and Iran is patient. Iran has been planning and preparing for a war of attrition with the United States for 20 years. They are cheering this deal.
And I think if they think that they can actually walk Trump over the finish line because he is desperate, he is tired, he is bored of this and it is a midterm election year, I think that's what they are hoping for. They are holding out that they can actually walk him across the finish line on these details.
COOPER: Anthony, do you think this affects the midterms at all?
SCARAMUCCI: I think on the margin it affects the midterms because the midterms to me still is going to be about affordability and I don't think anything gets done here and I think they will be higher oil prices leading into the midterms and if the Democrats can get it together and coalesce, they have a big statement against the President and his party.
CUPP: But it is not just the Democrats. You're absolutely right about that, it is Republicans. You've already mentioned a bunch of Republicans who are mad about it -- SCARAMUCCI: They will start breaking.
CUPP: It is not just congressional Republicans who are up for reelection Trump doesn't seem to care. It is also voters. It is Republican voters who didn't want this war, who don't want the consequences of this war, namely higher gas prices. They don't want any part of this.
So I think, it will have kind of a ripple effect for the midterms.
TODD: I would agree and disagree with S.E. on that, Anderson. I think the war was most Republicans did want to back the war. They do want to take out Iran. I think it is one place I disagree with S.E. on, but there is a pressure on the Republican coalition. There is a foreign policy wing of the Republican coalition, and they are really capitalist suburbanites, and they've not always been Trump's biggest fans. I don't think this will help him with them.
And then there are more blue collar people who are very cost sensitive on local affairs and economic affairs. I think this potentially could help with them.
But this is -- you don't want to be talking about half your coalition being happy with anything. And I think if the final deal is not better, this is a real electoral problem for the President.
[20:25:21]
COOPER: It also seems like, you know, there was an administration official which talked about kind of a gentleman's agreement with Iran about certain aspects of the negotiations and that the U.S. official told CNN, either side could walk away from talks over the next 60 days.
CUPP: A lot of this seems to be like honor system, which again, should make everyone deeply suspicious. There were some provisions in Obama's deal, for example, the supposedly anytime, anywhere inspections ended up giving Iran 24 days delay for them to hide stuff before inspectors came. Like Iran is good at this. They are good at getting these carveouts into these deals.
So Iran is going to be patient. Iran is going to wait, and I think they like this framework so far.
SCARAMUCCI: Anderson, when the Iranians called this an exemplification of America's failure, the deal, is that part of the gentleman's agreement, or is that non-gentlemanly?
COOPER: Anthony, I mean, somebody who knows the President, worked for him. How does he look like? How does he seem to you just in talking maybe, you know, he has been traveling internationally. His schedule is grueling.
SCARAMUCCI: Listen, I am not in the president has got dementia camp. I think he is healthy for an 80 year old. He has a produce level of energy. He went from a UFC fight on Saturday to France. COOPER: It is grueling.
SCARAMUCCI: And so you've got to give him credit for all of that. But what I really think the problem is they are afraid of him and there is a decision making --
COOPER: The people around him are --
SCARAMUCCI: Yes, there is a decision making committee of one and they don't want to get in his crosshairs. They don't want to get fired. They like the significance of being around him and flying around on the big plane.
And so if Abraham Lincoln had a team of rivals, the President has a hall of mirrors, and they are all trying to reflect him what he wants. And I think it is very dangerous because straight shooters would go to him and say, well, this is a disaster. Let's get in a room with a group of negotiators and let's game theory what we need to do to better our position here.
CUPP: But you know him particularly well in terms of his salesmanship. I don't think he bothered to sell this war.
COOPER: Yes.
SCARAMUCCI: Well, obviously not. No. I mean that was a big -- that was a big problem with the NATO coalition.
COOPER: S. E. Cupp, Anthony Scaramucci, thanks. Brad Todd as well. Thank you.
Just ahead tonight, Senator Bernie Sanders weighs in on today's agreement, as well as his plan for giving public direct ownership of A.I. companies.
Also tonight, what voters in the key swing state of Pennsylvania are telling CNN's John King about the issues they will be weighing in November, including Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more person in the Congress that is going to stand up to trump. That's going to get my vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:32:00]
COOPER: Continuing our conversation tonight about the preliminary agreement with Iran which the president has just signed. Before the break, we talked about the pushback It's getting from the right. Joining us now someone from the other side of the aisle, Vermont Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders. Senator, I want to ask you about the A.I. legislation that you're introducing regarding artificial intelligence in a moment. Just quickly on Iran, does the agreement the president just signed and the war he launched, does it make sense to you?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT): Well, obviously, this war was illegal. It was unconstitutional, Anderson. 10,000 -- 20,000 people are dead, massive destruction. I certainly hope it ends as quickly as possible.
COOPER: Let's talk about A.I., you know, these companies have, you know, Dario Amodei at Anthropic has talked about the potential for, you know, huge unemployment among entry-level white-collar jobs in the next, you know, five or ten years. You're introducing a plan for the government to use a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock of the largest A.I. companies to create a sovereign wealth fund, which you estimate could be worth $7 trillion. How would this work? And why is it necessary you think?
SANDERS: All right. A.I. is the most transformative technology in the history of humanity. It's going to impact every man, woman and child. Right now, it is being owned and pushed by the wealthiest people in the world, Mr. Musk. Mr. Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison and others. Their goal is simply more wealth and more power.
My own view is that given the fact that the foundation of A.I. is based on human knowledge, they've accumulated all of human knowledge, that humanity must play and people in America must play a vital role in the future of A.I. What does that mean? It means that the public should have 50 percent of the seats on the major A.I. companies in order to prevent bad things from happening.
You talked about mass unemployment. It is quite possible that over the next decade, tens of millions of jobs will be lost. I want to see the public on that board of those companies saying sorry, you know, you can't do that. We're talking about the evisceration of privacy rights. We're talking about democracy being endangered.
You got deep fakes right there. We've got people looking like Bernie Sanders, looking like Anderson Cooper, saying things that we never said. How do you deal with that? You're looking at the mental health of our kids. You're looking at an existential threat that if A.I. becomes independent of human control, as they become smarter than humans, there could be a cataclysmic impact on humanity.
You got all that stuff and more that's out there. So what we are saying, given the fact that human beings, Americans help build A.I., we deserve, A, to be able to stop bad things from happening and be with 50 percent ownership, let's like (ph) financially gain from the profits that A.I. may well create.
[20:35:00]
COOPER: And that money would be funneled back to citizens in the United States, right?
SANDERS: Right. Right now, we're talking about for a start of five percent every year. The fund which we estimate right now would be about $7 trillion. Five percent of that would be used for direct dividends. Every man, woman and child in this country starting in the beginning would be about $1,000 per person per year.
If A.I. is as valuable and grows as quickly as people think it might, that number will go up. In addition, you'll have a large amount of money available that makes sure that, in America, every man, woman and child has health care as a human right, that we improve the educational opportunities. We build the housing that we need.
So bottom line here is we cannot allow A.I. just to be used to benefit the very richest people in the world. It has got to be used to benefit all of us.
COOPER: You know the counter argument from a lot of these A.I. folks and these companies, which have been very resistant to regulation. Some have kind of given lip service to it. Anthropic has talked about some regulation, but this administration certainly seems to be resisting it. The argument is that this is an arms race and other countries and bad actors are going to develop it if the United States slows down.
Is this going to slow down development and hurt America's standing in this?
SANDERS: Well, I think even some of the people in the Trump administration are beginning to understand that given the existential threat that as A.I. becomes smarter than humans, it can become independent and perhaps do cataclysmic damage, there is now increased talk about the need to work with China and with other countries to prevent that from happening.
Certainly, we do need global cooperation. But it is astounding to me. I got to tell you, Anderson, the reason I got into this stuff is I looked around me in the Congress and I'm seeing the incredible impact that A.I. is going to have. And I'm not seeing anybody or virtually anybody doing anything real.
As of this date, if you could believe it, there has not been one significant piece of legislation to protect the American people from A.I. and robotics. And why is that? Well, it has everything to do with the corrupt campaign finance system that we have.
Again, they have endless amounts of money and they are prepared to spend in this campaign alone many, many hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat candidates who want to have sensible regulation to protect the American people.
COOPER: You've met with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, how did that go?
SANDERS: Well, I think Sam is a very good salesman. But bottom line is it's very hard to talk with anybody from the industry when they in a sense have a gun at your head. So we can chat and chat, but what Sam and the other CEOs of the industry are saying, look, if you want to regulate us, if you want to protect the American people, we have endless amounts of money in Super PACs to defeat you. We are very close to the president of the United States. We were at his inaugural. He is a fellow oligarch and he ain't going to do anything. And I think what we're looking at right now is a grassroots movement, which is taking place, opposition to data centers, deep concern about the growth of A.I. We're seeing real movement in a direction that says that A.I. has got to work to benefit all of us and not just a few.
That A.I. cannot be used to wipe out millions of jobs where people have no place. There won't be jobs available to them.
COOPER: Yeah.
SANDERS: So I think --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Nobody has voted -- nobody has voted for this which is one of these things I keep going back to.
SANDERS: That's the point.
COOPER: It is just extraordinary. Senator Sanders, I appreciate it. To be continued. Thank you.
SANDERS: Thank you very much, Anderson.
COOPER: Still to come, the crews trying to remove it at the D.C. reflecting pool are still seeing green after that no bid contract and the president spent $14 million to paint it blue and make other changes.
Next, John King "All Over the Map." He talks to voters in Penn -- in the battleground Pennsylvania where several races could decide which party controls the House this November.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:43:22]
COOPER: On a day that saw the president hail the preliminary agreement with Iran, here's the backdrop to it. Gas and food prices are still top of mind for voters leading up to the critical November midterms. In his "All Over the Map" report tonight, John King takes us through battleground Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR OF "ALL OVER THE MAP" (voice-over): Welcome to Pennsylvania and a journey through a critical slice of the midterm map.
KING: Right here in Eastern, Pennsylvania three districts that run 105 miles from just outside of Philadelphia up to the New York State border. If this stretch here flips from red to blue on election night, then the Democrats are taking the House, without a doubt. KING (voice-over): Stop one, Bucks County -- suburban, upscale, moderate, a short commuter train hop to Philly.
KING: Luckily, I read my "Gardening for Dummies" book last night.
(LAUGH)
MICHAEL PESCE, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Quick and easy, see.
KING (voice-over): Michael Pesce likes his Republican congressman. Yet, he is almost certain to vote for his Democratic challenger.
PESCE: Big picture, Trump is the problem that I see, the president is not doing what I think a president should be doing and that's disturbing to me. One more person in the Congress that is going to stand up to Trump, that's going to get my vote.
KING (VOICE-OVER): Pennsylvania 1 is represented by Brian Fitzpatrick. He's in his fifth term, first elected in 2016. Fitzpatrick won with 56 percent in 2024 and he is one of just three House Republicans from districts won by Vice President Harris. The first is Pennsylvania's most affluent district, the median annual income $114,000 a year, and the median home value $440,000.
[20:45:00]
Pesce was a Reagan Republican when we met three years ago. A registered Democrat now because he won't be in Trump's party. A Coast Guard veteran, angry at the price of a war he says makes no sense.
PESCE: I fill up my tank once a week. I was filling it up for $35, now it's $60 to fill up my tank.
KING (voice-over): Cold beer? Yes. But the news and politics off limits at Boo's Brewing.
KAREN GIORDANO, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: This is a place to escape. This is a place where people want to come and get away from all of that.
KING (voice-over): Business is pretty good, but owner Karen Giordano says the math is harder of late.
GIORDANO: We're watching the cost of everything go up, of the propane that we need to cook for the meat.
KING (voice-over): Giordano is not a Fitzpatrick fan and would love big change in Washington. But she rolls her eyes at talk this is the year the first district will flip blue.
GIORDANO: We thought that in the last cycle, right, when Trump was in, and that didn't happen. So I don't see it happening this time either.
KING (voice-over): North now, the Lehigh Valley. Bob Brooks is the Democrat running for Congress here. A firefighter looking to dent Trump's blue collar appeal. GERARD BABB, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Not even five years old yet, you can write your name.
KING (voice-over): Gerard Babb is listening. Babb works the assembly line at Mack Trucks, voted Trump three times.
KING: One of the arguments you're going to hear between now and November is elect a Democrat so the Democrats can take the House and stop Trump.
BABB: Yeah.
KING: That would be stop the president you voted for.
BABB: Yeah.
KING: Does that argument hold any sway with you?
BABB: As of right now, President Trump is kind of -- he's acting like a regular old politician to me, and no --
KING: So do you think it would be a good idea then to have some checks on him from the Democrats?
BABB: Yeah, no love lost, in my opinion.
KING (voice-over): The congressman in Pennsylvania 7 is Ryan Mackenzie. He won his first term in 2024 with just a 4,000 vote margin. President Trump won the 7th by 13,000 votes. The 7th is more blue collar. The median income, $82,000 a year. The median home value, about $300,000.
Hispanic voters make up about a quarter of the electorate. It's the highest Latino percentage of Pennsylvania's 17 congressional seats.
VICTOR MARTINEZ, RADIO HOST: [Foreign Language]. Good morning.
KING (voice-over): Allentown's La Mega morning show is feisty. And the host, Victor Martinez, is a Democrat. So consider the source.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: [Foreign Language].
MARTINEZ: This is interesting. He voted for Trump. And the one thing that bothers him the most is the corruption.
KING (voice-over): Still, calls to his daily political segment tell Martinez big change is coming.
MARTINEZ: Everybody thought, all right, well, Biden is gone. Things are going to change. He promised he was going to fix it. Let's see. Here we are a year later and things are actually worse. And so, I think that's why people are pissed off.
KING (voice-over): Two down, one to go.
KING: We started in Pennsylvania 1. We're in Pennsylvania 7. We're about to cross into Pennsylvania 8. Democrats absolutely have to get 7 and 8, or else they're not having a good night.
KING (voice-over): The 8th is represented by Republican Rob Bresnahan. He's also a freshman, first elected in 2024 with 51 percent, a 6,000 vote margin. President Trump won the 8th with 54 percent, a 33,000 vote edge.
The 8th includes reliably Democratic Scranton, but then a giant swath of Republican-leaning small towns and rural areas. Its median annual income, just shy of $70,000. The median home value, $213,000.
Scranton is the birthplace of Joe Biden, and the city's mayor, Paige Cognetti, is the Democratic candidate for Congress. Biden and Democrats less popular as you move out to the rural areas.
Honesdale is the Wayne County seat, conservative. Trump won 58 percent here in 2024.
TOM FASSHAUER, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I don't know what's going on.
KING (voice-over): Tom Fasshauer's father started this shop in 1948. Congressman Bresnahan rented his wedding tux here.
FASSHAUER: Four, five, 30, and 50.
KING (voice-over): Fasshauer is a big fan.
FASSHAUER: I like him. I think he's doing a great job.
KING: Why?
FASSHAUER: We had an issue in town here a year or so ago where there was a tremendous amount of rain runoff that kind of went in the wrong place and caused a lot of damage. He was here, I think, the next day, physically helping to repair that damage. I think he cares about the people in this district.
TANNIS KOWALCHUK, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: All right, hop in, John. All right, here we go.
KING (voice-over): Damascus is as far north as you can go in Pennsylvania. That's New York on the north side of the river. The Willow Wisp Farm is 25 acres. It's mostly vegetables, but two strips set aside for flowers Tannis Kowalchuk crafts into bouquets for farmers markets.
KOWALCHUK: You want to just clip at the bottom.
[20:50:00]
KING (voice-over): Of late, a $0.25 surcharge on every bouquet and every vegetable bunch to cover rising costs. To Kowalchuk, a Democratic House just step one in closing the Trump era.
KOWALCHUK: A country old or new needs a stable leader and we've lost that. Something's happened. He's stopped -- he's stopped being anything like a leader. (LAUGH)
KING (voice-over): She is vastly outnumbered here. Trump won 68 percent of the vote in Damascus. Bresnahan won 67 percent.
KING: And what do you do? What kind of performances?
KOWALCHUK: Oh, plays that are --
KING (voice-over): But this self-styled performer sees evidence a plot twist is brewing.
Kowalchuk built this performance space on the farm and also started a resistance choir for locals unhappy with Trump.
KOWALCHUK: 30 people, 40 people coming to this choir in a Republican's town. It's interesting, you know.
KING (voice-over): A step, she hopes, in a different direction.
KOWALCHUK: They are hungry to say something and do something about it. They want change.
KING (voice-over): 105 miles as the bird flies from where we began. Three key pieces of the midterm puzzle.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING (on camera): Anderson, you see the ground we covered there in the piece. Let me show you what it looks like on the map. You start here at the southern tip of Bucks County and you go all the way up to the New York state border at the top of Wayne County.
It's a lot of ground. You're in the suburbs at times, rural areas at times, farms, some small cities. Actually, a fascinating landscape as you move up through eastern Pennsylvania. A fascinating journey and absolutely pivotal for the Democrats as they try to retake the House.
This will be the toughest of the three districts. You see, Congressman Fitzpatrick margin in a presidential year. Kamala Harris won his district and he still won by 13 points. This will be the toughest. Early on, on election night, guess what? The polls close and we'll start to get the Pennsylvania results.
If Democrats are winning here, even leading here, even very, very competitive here, that will suggest a pretty good night for the Democrats, maybe even a very good night for the Democrats as you move across the country.
As you move north, though, to our other stops, these are absolutely essential for the Democrats. Almost must win if you want to recapture the House majority.
Look at the margin last time in the 7th. Look at the margin last time in the 8th. Democrats early on, on election night, will know, do they get at least those two back? If they do, they're on the path to a House majority. If they're struggling there, it might be an interesting midterm night. Anderson?
COOPER: John King, thanks very much.
Coming up, the Trump administration's battle against algae continues at the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:49]
COOPER: Well, the administration has spent as much as $14 million so far on a no-bid contract to achieve President Trump's vision of having the Reflecting Pool be American flag blue by July 4th. Right now, however, an algae bloom has turned the water green. Teams have been vacuuming and putting hydrogen peroxide in the water.
Joining me is New York Times Investigative Reporter, David Fahrenthold who's been breaking stories on the Reflecting Pool overhaul and its cost. So David, when you started reporting on this, did you imagine that we would still end up here green?
DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I didn't think it was possible because what they're doing has not solved some of the pool's underlying problems, but I thought it would take weeks or months before this came back. Instead it was literally within, I think, a week that the pool was so green, it looked like, in Chicago, when they dyed the river green for St. Patrick's Day.
COOPER: So what was not fixed that should have been fixed? Where do you see this going?
FAHRENTHOLD: Well, you remember that the big contract that they put out, this $14 million contract was to basically paint and seal the bottom of the Reflecting Pool, which was not really a problem. The concrete itself didn't leak. They did seal up some joints that leaked. That didn't fix anything to having to do with the problem of algae.
To fix that they were supposed to install a filter which has not been installed yet and they were also supposed to fix the pipes that connect the pool to the filter which often leak and have to be shut down. Those pipes have not been fixed at all and the idea is maybe they won't be fixed until the fall or later.
COOPER: You've made an interesting point which is that, oftentimes, the things that the president is most interested in often get done kind of badly. Why is that? How do you see that?
FAHRENTHOLD: It's a fascinating pattern. Really the things that Trump cares about are often the things that are done the least well and that is because they're often done with no-bid contracts. There's no effort to look for who will do the best job for the least money. It's just a mad rush to find somebody who will do it and there's often a real unwillingness from the administration or people within it to push back on Trump's ideas.
In this case, this job, the direction of this job seems to have been given over to the general manager of Trump's golf course at Bedminster, who obviously has never run a Reflecting Pool before, and some of these choices seem to be made by him, not by the people who knew the Reflecting Pool or who knew the National Mall well.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. When these rushes happen and people are afraid to tell anybody no, that's when you end up with bad outcomes. So it sort of comes back to bite Trump in the end as it certainly has here.
COOPER: So it's the price of having sort of sycophants around you or people who are afraid of you or whatever the reason may be, not kind of standing up and saying, Mr. President, it shouldn't be done this way?
FAHRENTHOLD: I mean, the Iran War was the big example of that, right? We saw that writ large. But then, Reflecting Pool is that in miniature, right? This is maybe not a great idea or not the right idea, but instead of people saying, hey, wait, we've got a plan, let's do the thing we were already planning to do. It's like just as fast as we can, let's get people doing this thing and then they learn later that that wasn't the right thing to do and the results are obvious for everyone to see.
COOPER: It's been incredible to see workers, you know, literally kind of pouring like gallon jugs of hydrogen peroxide into this enormous Reflecting Pool. I'm not sure how many jugs they're going to have to pour in there. But at this rate, they might still be working on this on July 4th.
FAHRENTHOLD: Yeah. It's hundreds and hundreds of gallons of hydrogen peroxide.
[21:00:00]
I mean remember how much Trump talked about how big the pool is?
COOPER: Yeah.
FAHRENTHOLD: So now, imagine trying to thin it out with hydrogen peroxide and suck out the algae one clump at a time. Right, they're saying that the permanent filter will be in place next week, maybe we'll see some improvement, but there's not many days left.
COOPER: All right. We'll be watching. David Fahrenthold, thanks so much. Appreciate it, as always.
That's it for us. The news continues. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" starts now.
